Microsoft Dynamics AX and NAV BREP Policy Change for North A

generic

The Business Ready Enhancement Plan (BREP) is currently required for most Microsoft Dynamics products when customers make additional license purchases. This policy has not been in effect for Microsoft Dynamics AX or Microsoft Dynamics NAV customers. Beginning June 1, 2010, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX (Module Based Licensing and Business Ready Licensing) customers will need to be enrolled in the Business Ready Enhancement Plan in order to make additional license purchases, such as additional modules and users. This policy change drives consistency across our customer base, and will help us provide additional value to our customers through innovative upgrades and updates.

This will suck. Customers that are not on current will probably change their ERP product if they run into an issue.
This will suck for partners who will loose revenue.

David_Singleton

Also for some customers its a double whammy. First they need to move from Granule based to Business Ready, then they need to catch up on back maintenance. For some customers that would cost more than just buying a whole new license.

Its one of those things that looks like it will generate more revenue, but my gut feeling is that at best it will be a net neutral revenue effect with a lot of unhappy customers. I can see Microsoft's point of view that if the customer has paid for their license and does not plan to pay any more serious money, then who cares if you lose them. But still I think its good in that it keeps revenue coming in for the partners and financially profitable partners in the long term are also good for Microsoft.

In anycase I am sure that the people that made the decision are far removed from Navision as a product and the customers that use it, so there is little chance in a change here.

matttrax

Yeah, this is essentially a $60,000 + charge for us with a very small gain in functionality (We have over 100 users and own about 90% of the granules).

Great. ](*,)

Alex_Chow

If the customer is on MBL (Module based licensing), they do NOT have to upgrade to BRL. They just need to be current on the enhancement plan.

matttrax

Oops, completely misread that sentence. Why does everything start with "Business Ready" :-k

Alex_Chow

generic wrote:

This will suck. Customers that are not on current will probably change their ERP product if they run into an issue.
This will suck for partners who will loose revenue.

Not really. Microsoft implemented this a while ago and I don't know of any end users that changed ERP because of this before MSFT reverted back their policy.

The restriction only prevents the users from purchasing additional modules and licenses. When MSFT did this the 1st time, clients that were not current and refused to be current purchased a lot of sessions. If anything, partners increased their revenue because of this.

Alex_Chow

matttrax wrote:

Why does everything start with "Business Ready" :-k

Marketing... :roll:

matttrax

I don't see a problem in making customers pay maintenance to get licensing changes. It makes perfect sense to me.

Although I see the user's side too. "I want something, I'm paying for it. Why do I have to also pay a maintenance fee to get it?"

David_Singleton

matttrax wrote:

Oops, completely misread that sentence. Why does everything start with "Business Ready" :-k

It seems quite confusing. So does that mean you can stay with MBL and have a Business Ready Enhancement Plan? If this is the case then it is different to my original understanding.

generic

Basically if you are not on enhancement plan, you cannot make any changes/purchase to your license.
E.g. purchasing a new user or a new granule.

Alex_Chow

David Singleton wrote:

It seems quite confusing. So does that mean you can stay with MBL and have a Business Ready Enhancement Plan? If this is the case then it is different to my original understanding.

The enhancement plan is called Business Ready Enhancement Plan. Whether you're on MBL or BRL.

David_Singleton

Alex Chow wrote:

The enhancement plan is called Business Ready Enhancement Plan. Whether you're on MBL or BRL.

Thanks for the clarification. In that case this really is not so new. I know clients that have been told before that they can't buy granules because they didn't have a support plan.

Alex_Chow

No, not really new at all. MSFT tried to do this once before already, but for whatever reason, they changed it back. I guess they're hoping the 2nd time is the charm.

generic

Why is this just for North America?

kapil4dynamics

generic wrote:

Why is this just for North America?

I think they know that how much sensitive public is here while spending it (I mean time spent for evaluation) .

davmac1

I think Microsoft needs to increase partner commissions on service plans - otherwise it just sucks NAV revenue form the partner that could be spent on services.
They also need to support executable only upgrades, since most customers skip several upgrade cycles. This way the customer will get some constant value from the service plan.

idiot

Nice work by M$. #-o This is no longer restricted to America.

Many companies acquire granules/users as & when they expands & budget allocated, which may be a few years down the road. Now they have justification to move over to other ERP when adding new NAV license would cost just as much.

Alex_Chow

idiot wrote:

Now they have justification to move over to other ERP when adding new NAV license would cost just as much.

I don't believe any company in the world would make that decision if the cost is about the same. I can only see the decision will be easy on a botched implementation where the users absolutely hates NAV.

idiot

Alex Chow wrote:

I can only see the decision will be easy on a botched implementation

Actually it's not easy to drop based on botched implementation. It's natural to keep investing until it is resolved then to do something new altogether which is more costly (what if it's another bad egg?), after all you already invested so much, the familiarity is already there, etc... It's better to try to salvage rather than get 2 bad eggs...

Alex Chow wrote:

users absolutely hates NAV.

They started to when they received the announcement of BREP.
Basically the budgeted amount for new users, tables etc for the coming year would have to be adjusted for the lapsed years & all forecasts will have to be revised...

What's to stop them from considering another ERP if the cost in a few years will be similar for everything else? Economy's not good & M$ had to bring out something like this, the wound would be a good reminder...

Actually the decision is very easy. Given the same costs, would a boss choose SAP or NAV?