Just a few days ago I wrote that there would be no new version of Dynamics NAV this year . Instead a new Dynamics 365 "Tenerife" would be released in Spring 2018. Code name "Tenife" would become a "common platform" for both Dynamics NAV and what used to be known as Dynamics 365 for Financials/Finance and Operations, Business Edition. This was announced at the Dynamics partner conference Directions in Orlando on September 18th. I primary work at end-users, so personally I did not see the big issue. There is nothing worse than buggy releases and I'd rather wait a little longer. But I was not personally in Orlando, so I only had some of the story. It was not so much a question about NAV 2018 being buggy, even if the new AL still is not quite where it needs to be. But that Microsoft seemed to change much more than just the release date of NAV 2018. Already at the conference this had made a lot of the partners both very upset and confused. Upset because Microsoft not long ago had announced, at a closed partner conference, that there would be a release in Q4, as there had been since the release of NAV 2013. Thus a lot of partners had already lined up customers, ready to go-live as soon as it would be released. And confused because the announcements had been so unclear especially in regards to licensing and pricing. So at closing session on the conference September 20th., Marko Perisic (General Manager for Dynamics SMB) said that they had heard the feedback. And that we would hear their "reply" soon. Soon, like in not 6 months. Well it didn't take 6 months to get Microsoft's reply. Friday my fellow MVP Erik Hougaard were the first to spot that there is going be a NAV 2018 released this year . This was announced by Alysa Taylor in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog . Alysa is General Manager of Global Marketing for the Cloud & Enterprise Business Applications and Industry division at Microsoft (happy I don't have to write that job title too many times [;)]). So she's Marko's boss, as I understand the setup at Microsoft. In the blog post she starts by more or less confirming the announcements made in regards to Dynamics 365. But more importantly "For small businesses who prefer to install their business management solution on-premises, we will continue to offer Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP, and Dynamics SL. Dynamics NAV 2018 and Dynamics GP 2018 will become generally available later this calendar year". I'm a little impressed about how fast Microsoft was to come with a statement. Shows that partner and community feedback does matter. Microsoft really does listen. At least for now there is still going go a "traditional" on-premission Dynamics NAV AND a cloud Dynamics 365 for "something" which incorporates a full NAV and a new "ISV-provided/extended" platform. Which basically leaves us just as confused as before Directions. But I'm also convinced that we have not heard it all yet. It's exciting times! [:)]
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