Product Session Highlights

Microsoft Business Solutions' global reach has been expanded - prior to the acquisition, Great Plains had 85% of the North American market and Navision had 85% of the EMEA market.  The combination of these two entities represents a unique opportunity to succeed on a global scale.

The combined organization consists of the following:

• 3800 Team Members

• 4000 Partners

• 900 solution Developers

• 250,000 customers

In addition, the combined enterprise has more than 1600 developers on board in three locations.  These developers will be supported by substantially increased investments in research and development.

New solutions will be released by the end of this year - including :

• CRM

• PSA

• Retail Management Solution - available now

• Business Portal - which will provide thin client access. It will also be the first delivery of an application on the Microsoft Business Framework.

• Business Network

New product positioning was announced at this session.  It included the consolidation of eEnterprise and Dynamics into one product called Great Plains, renaming Navision Attain to Navision and keeping the Solomon and Axapta names intact.   In addition, Microsoft Business Solutions announced plans to deepen their investment in the small business segment of the market.  

The products will also be segmented based on the IT Strategy of the buyer -

• Companies wanting an "out of the box" solution - will be served by Great Plains and Solomon which include "deep functionality, ISV verticals and customization tools".

• Companies seeking a development environment or a detailed customer solution will look towards Navision and Axapta.  These products have "functionality breadth, developer tools and a specialized ISV channel". 

The products will have three components in their name:

1. "Microsoft Business Solutions" Brand

2. Functional Series - Financials, Analytics, etc

3. Edition- Axapta, Great Plains, Navision or Solomon

So a product would be described as "Microsoft Business Solutions Financials Axapta Edition". (Whew!  You need to take a breath before you try to say that one!)

Microsoft Business Solutions will recognize customer loyalty and will provide discounts based on total product usage.  There are currently more than 400,000 customers who operate under a Microsoft® Open, Select or Enterprise Agreement which offers volume pricing over varying periods.  Program benefits and discounts will be extended to purchasers of  Microsoft Business Solutions products.

The future product strategy was described as follows:

• Solomon will include more project components

• Navision  and Great Plains will include more financial components

• Axapta will have more manufacturing components

Bob Clough, Vice President of Microsoft Small and Medium Business talked about leveraging Microsoft initiatives across the Microsoft Business Solutions organization.  The telesales teams (Microsoft and former Great Plains) will be working across all solutions and they have been co-located.  Additional marketing activities will be performed, all leveraging the Microsoft brand.  Bob also described efforts to teach Microsoft resources how to sell business solutions.  

Nigel Burton,  General Manager U.S. Marketing, described several new programs that will be focusing on Microsoft Business Solutions.  

According to Nigel, investments in awareness programs will be double the amount spent last year.  There will be new campaigns focused on industry solutions and 7 million direct mailers sent out.  Existing brand equity in key sites including MSN.com, MSNBC.com. and Microsoft.com will be leveraged to focus attention on Microsoft Business Solutions.   Events focused on small businesses will be offered around the country while lead generation goals are extremely ambitious.  

In addition, a new lead reporting tool has been announced.  Monthly reports will be generated and sample templates were handed out.   In addition a special CD has been made available to all partners, containing copies of marketing materials and solution selling resources.  As these tools have been created in a Microsoft Publisher format, Nigel announced that copies of Microsoft Publisher would be given to all event attendees.