Top reasons to use NAV 2009

generic

I'm wondering if you have plans to move to Unicode?
I know that this has to happen after the classic client is stopped being shipped, hopefully with the next version.
A simple yes that it is in the plan would make a lot of people/solution centers/ customers very happy.

It's sometimes painful to do multi country implementations.

Michael_Nielsen_[MSFT]

Moving to unicode requires a rewrite of the current unmanaged datastack. This will also enable us to support 64 bit and get better performance on SQL. However, this is not a trivial task and we have to prioritize it against other huge features like new toolset, customization and sharepoint client.

generic

Thank you for your response.
I guess I will wait patiently.

Michaellee

themave wrote:

Reason to not upgrade, cost.

even paying for support and having the right to upgrade only gets you right to upgrade,

you still have to pay to have the upgrade performed on your database.

just got a qoute to upgrade our 4.0, native database to SQL database on 2009 classic client

170-200 hours to upgrade data and object cost range $33,150 - 39,000

Sql upgrade not software, just the upgrade process
12 - 16 hours cost range $2340 -3120

Payroll upgrade
8 - 12 hours cost range 1560 to 2340

rough upgrade cost range $37,050 - 44,460

we have one two add-on one a direct ship add-on that cost $1000 to begin with, so it can't have too many modifications needed, and a integrated credit card solution, besides that pretty standard database.

There have to be some pretty compelling reasons to upgrade for that price.

this is why I hate Microsoft software maintenance fees, they get you nothing, but a right to pay someone to upgrade your system.

We did ours with consultants help and took 3 days... Not sure why the excessive 200+ days to change.. Most mimportantly the trick is to not change too much core tables and you will not get into this issue of rev-locking and cost vs. benefits situation.

Mike

ara3n

How many objects have you modified in your system.
tables = ?
reports = ?
cu = ?
form = ?

themave

ara3n wrote:

How many objects have you modified in your system.
tables = ?
reports = ?
cu = ?
form = ?

Tables 76
Forms 119
Reports 49
Codeunits 15

They have done all codeunit updates
Tables - I have add fields to 1/3 of the above tables, in the customer number range
I will handle all forms modification envolving appearance, they would have to change any code ( of which they have down all the programing for)
I would change all reports

of the tables, a large part are related to credit card processing, which has it own upgrade quote separate from the 40k price, as well as payroll which has its own quote separate from the upgrade.

I pay support for both the credit card add-on (chargelogic) and payroll

This is the only solution center we have used since we went live on Navision 2.0 in late 1999, they have done all programing.

I have done all form appearance changes and report modifications

DenSter

themave wrote:

Tables 76
Forms 119
Reports 49
Codeunits 15

And they charged you $37,050 - 44,460?!?!?!?!? From what version to what version? Did they take a two-step upgrade approach? Holy cow that is a lot of money. You must have REALLY difficult modifications in your database.

David_Singleton

I think its nearly impossible to quote an upgrade based on number of modified objects. The key here is how they were modified and what is the objective of the upgrade. In themave's case, the number of modified objects is very small, and at first glance that would look like a very lightly customized database. But who knows what those modifications are. Secondly the single most important phase of any upgrade, is the process to analyze what was done, look at the stuff that really should never have been done, or stuff that is now better done by new base functionality and thus should be removed.

It is the responsibility of a partner top say to the client "Sure we can upgrade all these objects for you, and basically drag over all your 'old baggage' into the new version, OR we can do a full analysis of your current business needs and looks at what makes sense and design your new system based on that. From the cost quoted to themave, we could possibly assume that their partner has gone this approach, and that most of the upgrade quote is this analysis and re-engineering.

In the end the biggest factor in the cost of the upgrade will be WHO is going to do the upgrade and WHAT they are going to upgrade to.

DenSter

you have to agree though, $47000 just for upgrading the objects.... where do I sign up?

themave

David Singleton wrote:

I think its nearly impossible to quote an upgrade based on number of modified objects. The key here is how they were modified and what is the objective of the upgrade. In themave's case, the number of modified objects is very small, and at first glance that would look like a very lightly customized database. But who knows what those modifications are. Secondly the single most important phase of any upgrade, is the process to analyze what was done, look at the stuff that really should never have been done, or stuff that is now better done by new base functionality and thus should be removed.

It is the responsibility of a partner top say to the client "Sure we can upgrade all these objects for you, and basically drag over all your 'old baggage' into the new version, OR we can do a full analysis of your current business needs and looks at what makes sense and design your new system based on that. From the cost quoted to themave, we could possibly assume that their partner has gone this approach, and that most of the upgrade quote is this analysis and re-engineering.

In the end the biggest factor in the cost of the upgrade will be WHO is going to do the upgrade and WHAT they are going to upgrade to.

We are on Version 4.0 no service packs, we started on 2.0 with advanced distribution and when we upgrade to 4.0 when it came out. we did a complete review of modifications in the 2.0 database, and decided to do a clean 4.0 upgrade, no modifications, and then change just what we needed to have from the 2.0 version. So we got rid of things that were no longer needed during the 2.0 - 4.0 upgrade process.

We have two add-ons plus payroll.

the first add-on is a from cost controll
http://www.costcontrolsoftware.com/Direct%20Purchasing.htm

and a credit card processing application by Chargelogic
http://www.chargelogic.com/?PageID=2

all the modifications made were done by the solution center, and they are well documented, each has a well written change order and support for what was done. We have been looking at the business needs, which is what brought us to this point, we would like to take advantage of some 5.0 features, such as document approval, file linking

Our upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 was a big undertaking, a lot was cleaned up, it was a major version change, and it cost just slightly more, then this quote it.

we are not trying to go to the rtc, arn't looking to make major changes, and a 4.0 to 2009 classic client shouldn't be that big of an undertaking. but appearanty it is.

generic

The first add on is really just special order and you don't really need it. You can do it all with std nav. Provided it it's additional one or two clicks.

You can do an EXE upgrade only to get the document linking and export to excel without doing the whole upgrade.

The document approval can be extracted out of 5.0 and loaded into your db. Much cheaper.

themave

generic wrote:

The first add on is really just special order and you don't really need it. You can do it all with std nav. Provided it it's additional one or two clicks.

I know, but we looked and figures saving the few clickes was worth it, it saves on training of counter personal. And it adds a few other nice features, such as a master list of all PO's and Sales Orders ever created, with date and time stamps, who created it, and a direct link to posted invoices, related to the PO or Sales Order.

Also, I am not saying my solution center is trying to rip me off, they are a good solution center, and I beleive they are quoting accurately the time it will take. figuring in, they also are quoting the work, which takes time, and after the upgrade, they have to test it, etc. I understand it is not just upgrade and be gone. My biggest problem is with Microsoft Maintenance, you basically get the right to upgrades and patchs, but nothing else, you have to pay to actually implement them. Even a service pack, will cost a pretty some to install. since it will envolve reviewing the modified objects, determining the changes, and how to implement them.

generic

Document archiving could be using for the history.


As far as Microsoft Maintenance, it's too high. But I would say their CDO is a ripoff too. Licensing any integration to data is a joke.

themave

generic wrote:

You can do an EXE upgrade only to get the document linking and export to excel without doing the whole upgrade.

The document approval can be extracted out of 5.0 and loaded into your db. Much cheaper.

That is an option we are looking at, but then we pay to modify the 4.0 database and make any move down the road to 2009 that much more difficult.

We don't want to fall too far behind, but Microsoft makes is nearly financially impossible to keep up to date. We would like to move to SQL, at some point maybe use the roll taylored client.

and every dollar we spend on 4.0, make upgrading less appealling. Say we get the document approval downgraded into the 4.0 database and get the document linking working. then we decide the kit processing is pretty nice. Upgrading for Kit processing would never be fiscally sound, so we would again pay to down grade it into the 4.0 database. well pretty soon we have a heavely modified 4.0 database and the rest of the Dynamic's base is moving to 2009 Service pack 2 or 3 which will be adding another feature we might be interested in.

Just got my annual maintenance invoice $12,000 for another year of the right to pay additional to upgrade or the right to pay additional to apply a service pack.

rsfairbanks

Just out of interest, have you calculated, if you didn't pay your maintenance, how long it would take before you would have saved enough to in effect re-purchase.

AdamRoue

Lets say maintenance is 16% and the solution centre kindly adds 9% (kind for my maths). If you pay this every year you have obviously paid for the software again in 4 years. However the 9% is ongoing support, the question then is what are they providing, what is the value add for the customer? Lets say you want to take this, but only for the first two years and you cut maintenance after the first, this means you reinvestment timescale is five years. However this is just the software price, and this is only a proportion of the overall project. You also need to consider the true bottom line ROI from the original implementation, i.e. the savings that would not have been possible if you had not changed software. A problem here is that most businesses do not know these elements, you need to know the metrics before hand and measure them afterwards. You also need to consider future versions. If you are on maintenance you have the right to the path (lets gloss over any costs here) so if you stop maintenance will a version that has enhancements that your business would significantly benefit from be released in any forward timescale. Can you ever judge this or be aware of the future changes to take this gamble however?

So a horrible paragraph that should have been broken in 10 places. I would say however it depends upon your business. Can the business be unsupported and not on maintenance and reap back the costs on the software to purchase again? I would say 5 years no, 10 years maybe, but you never know what will happen in those 10 years. Lets face it if budgets are being cut they are cut everywhere, and the maintenance/software element at 25% of the original software purchase price is a visible target - is it something the business can do without - I would argue yes in some circumstances and no in others. I do however know, with previous customers, which ones should have stipped paying with the future plans they had for the software, so it comes down to personal knowledge and experience.

Alex_Chow

The issue with enhancement has been discussed many times already, but it still never gets old.

The enhancement plan is like an insurance. For months and months, you pay your insurance premium without seeing any benefits. Then when one day, sh|t happens that you don't expect, you'll be glad you paid that insurance premium.

My point is, you just don't know what will happen. Your ERP software is like the heart of your business, to me, it makes sense to insure against the heart of your business.

On the flip side, some companies/people think paying insurances is a waste of money. When the oh crap factor appears, then you deal with it. Even if it will cost a lot of money.

Either way works. It depends on the management of the company.

DenSter

I don't get the argument that you would "get your money's worth" out of not paying the enhancement plan. So let's say the plan is 20%, because that's an easy number. You would have to use NAV for more than 5 years without paying the enhancement plan, to "get out on top". What are you going to do then, purchase the new version with a new license? That's 100% of the cost anyway, how did you save any money there?

Then, what if something happens during those 5 years, like oh I don't know.... there is a new OS that is not compatible with your NAV version. Now all of a sudden you are scrambling to purchase up a bulk of computers with the 'old' OS, or having to find another solution with TS or whatever, which cost additional money as well. Are you saving money there? I don't think so. What about patches to the executables that deal with a security update, or a new version of SQL Server that you need to use for another application. All things that you would not be able to do by not paying the enhancement plan.

I understand that it is hard to accept "paying x% for nothing", but once you realize that it isn't actually "nothing", you just need to look at it from a value standpoint. I do agree that it should be a lot less, and I personally think that you should get all hotfixes for your version for free for as long as your version is supported. But, I definately do NOT agree that the enhancement plan gets you nothing.

generic

Patches to executables for same version should be free, even if you are not paying maintenance fee. After all you have been sold a faulty product.
If you try to do that in other industries, good luck with staying in business.

As far new releases, if it takes 4 years to release a new version you really haven't received anything for your money.
And upgrading to 2009 isn't cheap.
On top of that you get new licensing rules that make it way to expensive to do anything.

DenSter

Yes I agree about the patches being free of charge for your version, like I said earlier. In fact I think patches should be distributed through Windows Update. The reality is though that they are not, and you have to be current on the enhancement plan to get them. When you don't pay the enhancement fee you'll be forced to catch up when you do upgrade, or purchase a completely new license. Both options don't save any money, so I really don't see the point of not keeping up with the enhancement plan. You end up spending the money anyway, so why not spread it around?

matttrax

DenSter wrote:

I don't get the argument that you would "get your money's worth" out of not paying the enhancement plan. So let's say the plan is 20%, because that's an easy number. You would have to use NAV for more than 5 years without paying the enhancement plan, to "get out on top". What are you going to do then, purchase the new version with a new license? That's 100% of the cost anyway, how did you save any money there?

Obviously you wouldn't save money until after the 5th year. Say you went 10 years without an upgrade, that's double the cost of the software. My company has a big license, 155 users, and pays almost $50k / yr in maintenance. That's $500,000 in maintenance, but only $250,000 for the software. So you've saved quite a lot...if nothing goes wrong.

It's only worth it to pay maintenance if you intend on upgrading / hotfixing your software. Honestly I've never put in a hot fix for any customer. They just wait until they upgrade to a new version. There are plenty of companies who decide that their ERP works and has been working fine for years and stop paying. With the horror stories about companies going out of business because of bad implementations / upgrades I can't blame them for staying on an old, but working, system.

All that said, I still think companies should pay maintenance and I will never encourage a company not to. You never know what's going to happen...

generic

It would be suicide to recommend against soft maintenance for a consulting company. Mainly if something goes wrong and you are the one suggesting it.



I agree that if an ERP system has been run for years without any issue, you won't upgrade for at least 5 years or use new OS, then it's worth considering.

Plus MS constantly puts out deals for customers who have stopped paying maintenance to catch up.

themave

generic wrote:

It would be suicide to recommend against soft maintenance for a consulting company. Mainly if something goes wrong and you are the one suggesting it.



I agree that if an ERP system has been run for years without any issue, you won't upgrade for at least 5 years or use new OS, then it's worth considering.

Plus MS constantly puts out deals for customers who have stopped paying maintenance to catch up.

another reason to forgo maintenance would be to spend the money on customizing Navision for your operations. The money spend on Maintenance could be spent on customizations and you may never need to go to a new version.

If we had never paid maintenance beyond the first year, we went live in 1999 with 2.0 with advance distribution. we would have saved around 96,000 in maintenance fees, and we did upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 for another $45000, so we spent a total of $141,000 on maintenance and upgrading. A fraction of that money could have paid to get Navision to look and work almost anyway we wanted. In fact I think we would have a better system they our current 4.0 configuration. My suggestion for a new user, would be to do just that, get Navision running, use the first year to work out the bugs, and then spend the money on customizing for your operations. Hindsite is great.

With the new release with the three tier setup, SQL backend, etc. customizations are almost limitless.

generic

Except now you are stuck with CDO licensing, and I would wait for SP1 for 2009 before implementing 2009.

DenSter

Look there is no argument from me that the maintenance fee as it is is WAY too expensive, and I've already said that I think that patches to YOUR version should be provided without extra cost.

The reality is though, that the model is what it is, and I don't think you save money by not paying the maintenance fee, unless you are willing to work around the patches. I have a customer on 3.6 who can't purchase new computers because it is not compatible with Vista, and investing in new infrastructure to provide it in TS is out of the question. They haven't paid their maintenance in about 5-6 years, so if they would purchase the new version, or catch up with their enhancement plan, they just about break even. I don't see how that saves any money, because over the yeas they've spent a fortune on consulting and development services to modify their system to work around bugs. They can't upgrade their server software, they can't upgrade their SQL Server, because of compatibility issues. So now they are faced with the choice of either taking the chance and let their system blow up at any time, or actually plan an upgrade.

I don't think recommending your customer to be in that situation is good advice.

David_Singleton

DenSter wrote:

So now they are faced with the choice of either taking the chance and let their system blow up at any time, or actually plan an upgrade.

or buy SAP, which will be cheaper than upgrading Navision :whistle:

DenSter

How did you know that? :whistle:

Maybe purchasing the license is cheaper, but that's only the beginning. SAP consultants are much more expensive though, and IIRC, SAP charges 24% annual maintenance fee.

Alex_Chow

themave wrote:

rough upgrade cost range $37,050 - 44,460

Sorry for quoting an old post. But I have to ask themave. Would you be more inclinded to upgrade if it costs $15,000 - $20,000?

If no, then what price would be acceptable to you?

matttrax

I think companies would be more inclined to upgrade if it didn't cost minimum $150/hr. Haven't seen many partners nice enough to quote a fixed price...AND include bug fixes caused by the upgrade in that price. It's been my (although limited) experience that customers are always expecting it to cost more than the quote, and most of the time they are right.

ara3n

Tectura offers clients to do upgrades at lower rate provided the work is done overseas. Customers don't see a difference since they still get local support during testing etc. They save a lot of money. There are also other solution centers that do the same and are very experienced in upgrades.