Navision timeline until 2010

johnson_alonso

Dear All,
According to Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_Statement_of_Direction_June_06.pdf, it explains about Navision worldwide version release, it seems Navision will be issued or released every year. It's really amzing but sometimes it can be bad things and news.
Do all of you here agree with the plan of releasing..?
I expect your answers to sharing your opinion with me.


Rgds,
Johnson

themave

Unless the cost of upgrading become significantly cheaper, I can not see companies upgrading every year. With any modification to the database, upgrading becomes expensive. I can't imagine there will be a many companies that would upgrade from 4.0 to 5.0. There is not enough additional benefits that I have seen yet to justify it.

I think most of the people upgrading to 5.0 will be 2.x and 3.x users who would finally decide they need to upgrade, and once they go through that expense, and learning curve, they are not likely to repeat it every year there after.

Rengle

Hi Johnson,

I don't expect Microsoft to keep on an annual upgrade path. Making a statement like that is bad in two ways - it indicates that if it isn't ready then it will ship anyway in order to make the deadline, or that the updates will not be significant enough to warrant upgrade action on the part of the users.

The pain/benefit ratio that themave spoke about is so true. As I see the product, as a very new user to it, there are tremendous impovements that must be made to underlying logic and design. The vast majority of these improvements would mangle any existing installation, as they likely already have a ream of code dedicated to workarounds.

I would greatly prefer to see updates released as they are ready and I would very much like to see a clear path toward the so-called unified Dynamics platform. I expect this would likely entail a few major (breaking existing installations) updates.

We'll see.

Ross

Alex_Chow

I'd rather they did not set any deadlines. The people who set deadlines are more likely the sales/marketing staff at Microsoft.

I'd much rather they release a solid product. But than again, that's just wishful thinking...

ara3n

I think large clients who have huge databases and concurent users who need access to the server from the web (intranet) would definetly upgrade to the new version. I agree with themave that clients that went recently live and have gone through the initial learning curve do not want to go through it again.

For clients in 2.x version that haven't upgraded, I'm worried in that they usually are small and are on native server, and one of big advantages of 5.0 is new Dynamic client and they need to get SQL. That will be a hard sell to buy an addition sql license for 20K.

themave

ara3n wrote:

I think large clients who have huge databases and concurent users who need access to the server from the web (intranet) would definetly upgrade to the new version. I agree with themave that clients that went recently live and have gone through the initial learning curve do not want to go through it again.

For clients in 2.x version that haven't upgraded, I'm worried in that they usually are small and are on native server, and one of big advantages of 5.0 is new Dynamic client and they need to get SQL. That will be a hard sell to buy an addition sql license for 20K.

I think the shift to SQL will be a big draw back to small installations, the beauty of the native database is there is almost no administration needed, no syncronizing premissions, no real optimization, the swift tables work great. No matter what people say, you need a technical background and training to administer a SQL database. No matter how many wizards they create, you will end up needing a database administrator at some point.

During our recent upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0, I looked hard at the sql option, but when I presented it to my boss, the 20k bill, he asked what we got for that, and the only true response I could give is that Microsoft is moving that direction and at some point you won't be able to take advantage of new features without it. that is kind of a tough sell. I also pitched that the new version will of coarse be slower then the old version, as every upgrade has been, and that Microsoft is concentrating the proformance improvements to be on sql and they are not likely to do anything in the future to improve the native database proformance. His reponse was basically, it looks like we won't be upgrading again any time soon.

Alex_Chow

Navision 5.0 will still be able to run on native database. This is based on the powerpoint presentation I downloaded on this site.

SQL server is optional, but recommended as you can do more things on the technical end. However, the end user won't see much of difference.

themave

deadlizard wrote:

Navision 5.0 will still be able to run on native database. This is based on the powerpoint presentation I downloaded on this site.

SQL server is optional, but recommended as you can do more things on the technical end. However, the end user won't see much of difference.

to use the new client you have to have the three tier setup, which requires SQL 2005, you will be able to use Nav 5.0 with the native database, just not the new client. And you will have to have SQL for the reporting services, which is supposed to be a big thing for Nav 5.0

ara3n

[edit]

johnson_alonso

You are all here correct. if Navision timeline is really needed and always released every year it will give a bad image for customers that currently run their old versions. In the negative side, they will think if their current version maybe incomplete and assume Navision is weak, in the positive side, they will not care as long as their current versions are matching with their business process and there is no additional things like problems in modifications, creating report and so on.
New version issued to improve old version and nothing in this world is 100% perfect. I only expect it issued every 2 years or 3 years.


Rgds,

ara3n

I think the timeline is more of a assurance to clients and VARs that Navision is here to stay and they have a plan that will take Navision to Dynamics. This assures Solutions centers and clients to continue to use Navision and invest int. That is why they've released the info. As about the dates, that can change if the product is not ready. Look at v5 it was suppose to be released this year, but has been moved to next year.

Also releasing every year. I think they have a plan to move the development side to .NET and that is what you'll see in the next version I think. So the changes will be done on development side incrementally and that is why new version every year.

upasanisandip

johnson alonso wrote:

Dear All,
According to Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_Statement_of_Direction_June_06.pdf, it explains about Navision worldwide version release, it seems Navision will be issued or released every year. It's really amzing but sometimes it can be bad things and news.
Do all of you here agree with the plan of releasing..?
I expect your answers to sharing your opinion with me.


Rgds,
Johnson

Hi,
Can u forward me
Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_Statement_of_Direction_June_06.pdf
@ sandipupasani123@yahoo.co.in

Luc_VanDyck

upasanisandip wrote:

Hi,
Can u forward me
Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_Statement_of_Direction_June_06.pdf
@ sandipupasani123@yahoo.co.in

The document is labeled "Microsoft Partner Confidential".

upasanisandip

Luc Van Dyck wrote:

upasanisandip wrote:

Hi,
Can u forward me
Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_Statement_of_Direction_June_06.pdf
@ sandipupasani123@yahoo.co.in

The document is labeled "Microsoft Partner Confidential".

Anybody have "Microsoft Partner Confidential" please send on sandipupasani123@yahoo.co.in

Luc_VanDyck

You don't understand: you need to be a Microsoft Partner to read this document. And a Microsoft Partner may not re-distributed this document.

davmac1

One of the huge advantages in Navision 5 is for companies that are integrating non-Navision SQL Server based systems.
They don't say how the report integration will work with SQL Server 2005 - I am hoping Navision will start supporting views and queries in their report writer. Right now I have to build SQL Server views, then define them as Navision tables before I can use them in Navision reports.
Sometimes it is just easier to write a complex query in 1 to 5 minutes and provide information in Excel.
I am curious about themave's 20K SQL Server bill. Unless the installation is very large, you can get a single dual core CPU server to run SQL Server with a single 5K CPU license. You probably want to run Navision on a separate server.

themave

davmac1 wrote:

....I am curious about themave's 20K SQL Server bill. Unless the installation is very large, you can get a single dual core CPU server to run SQL Server with a single 5K CPU license. You probably want to run Navision on a separate server.

I may be wrong, but reading Microsoft white paper on SQL server pricing I read, you must purchase a separate license for each processor in the server where SQL server is installed, our existing server is a quad processor server which would require four processor licenses. That would be the 20k,

So, I looked at getting a new dual processor server, which would replace the old four processor server. That cost around 5k for the new server and then I would still need 2 processor licenses. A new license of Windows 2003 server, So, that would run the bill to around 17K, for the standard edition on a new dual processor server.

I would like a backup server, but that would mean another 17K for the backup server. So, I would remove two processors from my old 4 processor box, and only have to buy two more sql server processor license, which would make the backup server, a little slower then the production server, but only cost another 10k in licenses.

Now, I realize you are talking about a dual core, not dual processor, and I will investigate that option.

But I was reading the differences between standard and enterprise edition of SQL 2005, and it seems like you really would need the enterprise edition, as it has Online Indexing, Online Restore, Fast Recovery, and advance business analytics, and if you are going to sql it seems like you would surely need the online indexing, just to maintain good performance on Navision. The enterprise edition substantially increases your cost.

davmac1

The standard edition in 2005 includes database mirroring.
If a server is used only as a backup server, you do not need an additional SQL Server license for it.

themave

davmac1 wrote:

The standard edition in 2005 includes database mirroring.
If a server is used only as a backup server, you do not need an additional SQL Server license for it.

thanks, I missed that in the whitepaper, as long as it has the same or fewer processors and is not used beyond the mirror purpose, ie, you don't use it for running reports, it doesn't require a separate license. Nice.

The dual core not requiring a separate license is nice also. Might be able to go with a dual processor capable dual core system and start with just one dual core processor and if needed add the second dual core processor and license later.

kriki

[Topic moved from Upcoming version NAV 5.1 forum to Navision forum]

johnson_alonso

Dear Upasanisandip,
Luc is correct. You could ask the partner that implemented navision in the company you are working for now.




Rgds,

Miklos_Hollender

DavMac1,

Just curious - how do you put information from SQL queries into Excel? The basic problem is that yes, you can easily put a SQL View into Excel but that rarely makes sense, and often would provide more that 65K lines... or you can put a Pivot table, that's also useful in many cases, but not in every case.

AFAIK the typical way of SQL reporting is via stored procedures, which have parameters like f.e. for some sort of stock movement report it would be FromDate, ToDate, FromItemNo, ToItemNo,FromItemCategory,ToItemCategory etc. etc. But, the problem is, you can't make Excel to pick up these report parameters from cells. I've tried it quite a lot, and simply put, Microsoft Query cannot do it.

davmac1

I was referring to writing SQL queries as a developer and dropping the results into Excel which is very easy.
With some programming or possibly Sharepoint a developer could come up with a user friendly front end.