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NAV 2013 R2 - Are you "IN and ON" or "OUT and OFF"?
cnicola
Member Posts: 181
Hi everyone,
This is the title of an article by Mark Brummel on MSDynamicsWorld.com ( http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/micros ... or-out-and )
I do not think Mark needs any introduction and he has been in the NAV world longer than most of us. Which is why I was surprised to find myself disagreeing strongly with most of his article. My view on Microsoft's direction with NAV (and the view of many people I know in the NAV world) is vastly different so I wanted to put mine out there and hear from other people as well.
So I guess I will get the ball rolling ...
Microsoft wants double digit Growth: While that is probably true, achieving that kind of growth in any company comes at the expense of either the internal people (or channel) that has to deliver that or at the expense of the pocket of the consumer (see $400 IPhones). And let's not forget that there is no guarantee that a race to make NAV = QuickBooks + will deliver those results. A race to the bottom is generally not good for anyone. And Microsoft does not have a good track record at spotting winning trends ... Otherwise we would all "Binging" things instead of "Googling" them.
The new market: Using a video like this http://mediadl.microsoft.com/mediadl/ww ... mation.wmv to illustrate what the market is (or will be)? I will need a lot of Kool-Aid to watch that 16 minutes thing.
Classic (Old) Market vs. New: Even if I believed that in the long run MS will still support both, trying to do two things at once never works. Windows 8 comes to mind (and Windows 8.1 apparently is not that much better). Or reports in 2009 (Classic and RDLC). But personally I do not believe they want both (in the NAV space). As Mark points out, MS wants the double digit growth and they FEEL (which is not the same as know) that they will get this with "repeatability" so as any normal self-interested corporation they will put all the resources into that direction. (as a side note I think it goes without saying that it is accepted by now by everyone that MS will not make any attempts to nurture or listen to what the NAV channel wants or thinks).
I mean RDLC reporting is still an embarrassment after all these years and they either have not fixed it because they do know how (which is scary to think) or more likely because it is not a priority (and probably viewed as minor nuisance in a repeatable business where the coding is minimal).
And who knows, maybe in the long run MS will be right with Windows 8 tiles and "repeatable" ERP. But as they say in the stock market, in the long run we will all be dead anyway.
Multi-Tenancy: This is yet another feature that has no use for 99.9 % of the channel today. And to me, even for the remaining 0.1 % this is of marginal value as it is a technical shortcut to something that they can do today. There was (and still is) a faster and better way to foster Multi-Tenancy for the entire 100% of the channel: lower the license price of NAV running on Multi-Tenancy (and maybe of the SQL license required for it since this is aimed at cost conscious customers) =P~ . Now THAT would be change I can believe in
it is a logical step since they are sharing part of the application. But I doubt I will ever see that since that would require MS to give up a little revenue on their end towards their goal instead of expecting the channel to absorb the costs of seeing their vision through.
Microsoft's only mistake is not communicating better: Well that is not news to anyone (though at times I wonder if it is lack of communication skills or simply not knowing what they want to say at which point probably better to say nothing
). This is the same organization that has promoted (and still does) Jet Express (a freemium teaser 3rd Party product ) when they have Power Pivot and now ODATA. But I do not think anyone I know thinks that is the ONLY mistake MS has made.
Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with this new direction for NAV is that the entire discussion is driven and dominated by what MS wants to do and what they think the future will look like. I have not seen any independent studies saying this is exactly what customers want (and my experience with my own customers did not point in that direction either). I have heard customers say that Office 365 is too expensive because MS uses a 3 year break even cycle (i.e. customers will buy a new version every 3 years) whereas in the real world customers tend to hold on to a version 5 to 7 years ...
From a business perspective, I agree that there is a market for "repeatable" business for the 1 to 10-15 users companies. But above that (and I guess officially to 70 users where AX is supposed to kick in), customers will want and have the money to build a custom fit system (probably starting from a vertical add-on base). So to me, I would expect to see NAV as we know it being strongly supported by MS and then have something like C5 lag one version behind NAV releases for the lower level market. This way you would be supporting the current market while leveraging it for the new one as well instead of essentially trying to create a new market while hoping that the existing one will keep going on its own inertia (while paying for the development of the new market).
And from a personal perspective, if NAV becomes QuickBooks +, I see NAV programming relegated to the role of the maintenance guy in the basement making sure the plumbing and the boiler work OK. This is certainly not making NAV cool and it is not what I want from my career no matter how much money I will make the other way.
This is the title of an article by Mark Brummel on MSDynamicsWorld.com ( http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/micros ... or-out-and )
I do not think Mark needs any introduction and he has been in the NAV world longer than most of us. Which is why I was surprised to find myself disagreeing strongly with most of his article. My view on Microsoft's direction with NAV (and the view of many people I know in the NAV world) is vastly different so I wanted to put mine out there and hear from other people as well.
So I guess I will get the ball rolling ...
Microsoft wants double digit Growth: While that is probably true, achieving that kind of growth in any company comes at the expense of either the internal people (or channel) that has to deliver that or at the expense of the pocket of the consumer (see $400 IPhones). And let's not forget that there is no guarantee that a race to make NAV = QuickBooks + will deliver those results. A race to the bottom is generally not good for anyone. And Microsoft does not have a good track record at spotting winning trends ... Otherwise we would all "Binging" things instead of "Googling" them.
The new market: Using a video like this http://mediadl.microsoft.com/mediadl/ww ... mation.wmv to illustrate what the market is (or will be)? I will need a lot of Kool-Aid to watch that 16 minutes thing.
Classic (Old) Market vs. New: Even if I believed that in the long run MS will still support both, trying to do two things at once never works. Windows 8 comes to mind (and Windows 8.1 apparently is not that much better). Or reports in 2009 (Classic and RDLC). But personally I do not believe they want both (in the NAV space). As Mark points out, MS wants the double digit growth and they FEEL (which is not the same as know) that they will get this with "repeatability" so as any normal self-interested corporation they will put all the resources into that direction. (as a side note I think it goes without saying that it is accepted by now by everyone that MS will not make any attempts to nurture or listen to what the NAV channel wants or thinks).
I mean RDLC reporting is still an embarrassment after all these years and they either have not fixed it because they do know how (which is scary to think) or more likely because it is not a priority (and probably viewed as minor nuisance in a repeatable business where the coding is minimal).
And who knows, maybe in the long run MS will be right with Windows 8 tiles and "repeatable" ERP. But as they say in the stock market, in the long run we will all be dead anyway.
Multi-Tenancy: This is yet another feature that has no use for 99.9 % of the channel today. And to me, even for the remaining 0.1 % this is of marginal value as it is a technical shortcut to something that they can do today. There was (and still is) a faster and better way to foster Multi-Tenancy for the entire 100% of the channel: lower the license price of NAV running on Multi-Tenancy (and maybe of the SQL license required for it since this is aimed at cost conscious customers) =P~ . Now THAT would be change I can believe in
it is a logical step since they are sharing part of the application. But I doubt I will ever see that since that would require MS to give up a little revenue on their end towards their goal instead of expecting the channel to absorb the costs of seeing their vision through.Microsoft's only mistake is not communicating better: Well that is not news to anyone (though at times I wonder if it is lack of communication skills or simply not knowing what they want to say at which point probably better to say nothing
). This is the same organization that has promoted (and still does) Jet Express (a freemium teaser 3rd Party product ) when they have Power Pivot and now ODATA. But I do not think anyone I know thinks that is the ONLY mistake MS has made.Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with this new direction for NAV is that the entire discussion is driven and dominated by what MS wants to do and what they think the future will look like. I have not seen any independent studies saying this is exactly what customers want (and my experience with my own customers did not point in that direction either). I have heard customers say that Office 365 is too expensive because MS uses a 3 year break even cycle (i.e. customers will buy a new version every 3 years) whereas in the real world customers tend to hold on to a version 5 to 7 years ...
From a business perspective, I agree that there is a market for "repeatable" business for the 1 to 10-15 users companies. But above that (and I guess officially to 70 users where AX is supposed to kick in), customers will want and have the money to build a custom fit system (probably starting from a vertical add-on base). So to me, I would expect to see NAV as we know it being strongly supported by MS and then have something like C5 lag one version behind NAV releases for the lower level market. This way you would be supporting the current market while leveraging it for the new one as well instead of essentially trying to create a new market while hoping that the existing one will keep going on its own inertia (while paying for the development of the new market).
And from a personal perspective, if NAV becomes QuickBooks +, I see NAV programming relegated to the role of the maintenance guy in the basement making sure the plumbing and the boiler work OK. This is certainly not making NAV cool and it is not what I want from my career no matter how much money I will make the other way.
Apathy is on the rise but nobody seems to care.
0
Comments
mostly agree. I also saw the "Are you 'IN and ON' or 'OUT and OFF'?" on Mark's site but thought "no, I'll not bite". I've read the post now and I would also say I disagree. However, it won't help much anyway
Fact is: If Microsoft wants in one direction, they have the money to do so. No "partner" can stop them. Since listening to anybody seems to be out of style at Microsoft it is for the partners to recognize what is to be done. If it means that the partners need a new line of business, it will happen. That's what's actually happening. Alternatives will (be) develop(ed). New alliances will form. And quite a few of us will be supporting the still existing customers as long as there is money in it. This is the time to take a look around. In fact, I'm doing this for over two years now.
with best regards
Jens
I see a split in customers before RTC and after. Going over this line cost twice as much money for upgrading and customizations.
NAV 2013 R2 - Are you "IN and ON" or "OUT and OFF"
is almost enough in and off itself to make sure that I personally am "OUT and OFF". I am close to being insulted by the very headline itself.
2013 is certainly the best release since RTC was introduced and while experience with R2 is still limited it looks good. Unless you have to maintain addons for many different versions of NAV but that is another story.
edit:
Insulted was too strong a word. I guess I was a bit pissed off at the time of writing. But I will let it stand in the text above. But I must admit to being sort of "out and off". Not convinced at all.
Tommy
So if I get it right the central idea is that the customers, their buying behavior is changing. Right?
I have noticed multiple kinds of changes. Some seems to match this new direction, some not.
The one that matches is - and it is not really a change, just more like recognizing what was already there - customers wanting working, functional apps out of the box. In the past, none of the big, international ERP software could deliver that while many small, cheap local accounting packages could. So customers became furious when they threw out their €5000 app, bough this €50000 app (NAV) and then we wanted to charge them extra for setting up or developing stuff their own app could do out of the box. The small accounting packages were so good, just one story: the external accounting company used by our subsidiary in Italy would refuse to use our NAV until we can do the same thing their accounting software provider does: updating the software to the latest legal requirements several times a year, and it does not mean software updates, it means configuration updates: they refuse to even consider learning concepts like VAT Posting Setup, because they don't need to do that currently, their software provider sends them a CD every month that automatically creates in the database new codes, new setup, adds lines to their equivalent of VAT Statement, Accounting Schedules like Balance Sheet etc. - they don't do this, they don't need to learn all this, all they need to do in their current system is in order to produce government report 99A press button called 99A and never care about a line of configuration. This is what is expected, and this is what small package vendors do, and if MSFT wants this kind of out of box ability I can fully support that. Only real "extras" should be customized, for starters never anything that is about regulatory compliance. They should publish preferably in the demo database perfect VAT Statement etc. setups for a given country etc. So this is change that matches the market expectations very well. If they can deliver on that.
The one that does not match is reducing flexibility. This is what MSFT gets wrong. Users are indeed changing in the sense that they are no longer asking if we can do this or that. They are no longer used to stuff like a fixed CA-Clipper screen. They are used to **WEBSITES** where the web designer chan change everything. And will. This was a problem even before the RTC with the product Microsoft CRM, users kept asking can we remove that button, can we make that button red so we don't forget to click it, can we rearrange those buttons, can we... and the answer was always no which they would not take for an answer. They are used to web designers being happy to change any piece of HTML or CSS. **THIS IS HOW THE MARKET IS CHANGING** things are getting web based with unlimited customization possibilities.
I am not talking about "business requirements" - a lot of people in this field and apparently MSFT too forget that it is personal. It is people sitting there who decide they want something. Doesn't really matter the business value. It is a value for them. You get your invoices paid by people. You have to make people content, not businesses optimal in a way you think it is optimal.
Microsoft forgets that often people who are really clueless or careless are users. So for example in the past I had users who forgot which window they had open so we colored the background of quotes red, orders yellow and invoices green. It took 3 mins. Uncharged yet they loved us to pieces for it. What is exactly the RTC solution for that?
Then some other changes. It seems the market is developing in the technological sense SLOWER than Microsoft and Navision is already becoming too high-tech. Consider web services. Why? People happy writing SQL queries reading NAV tables. Or write in a custom, shared table that works as a staging area for validation and import by C/AL. (Not writing in standard tables by SQL of course just in a custom table, as an interface.)
This is not just a NAV problem. For some reason Microsoft on the whole decided writing SQL is somehow bad so now they abstract it away everywhere, in CRM every business logic works through web services, in other tech they turn SQL into LINQ I just don't see the point, the market does not work that way, they often have an old IT guy who can cobble together an ad hoc SQL report but not these stuff.
Microsoft is forgetting about small, cheap customers without IT. Who don't want to administer a three-tier architecture or learn PowerShell. To whom a simple Classic server, not even SQL just the old Raima-based native one was good enough. Who sit in a dingy old warehouse with 15" CRT screens, the last version they loved was 3.7 because it worked well even in 800 * 600.
So it seems we are getting too high tech for many needs and many capabilities. Of course whether in those cases SaaS will be the way forward or not is a different question. Perhaps as in the past if the customer wanted to develop some software or report on its own and use an SQL query to read NAV data, they will now have NAV hosted by the partner company and will write an ODATA query instead. Maybe this is the whole point.
I have to admit that in many cases the too high tech parts are only a problem if it is all installed and administered at the client side, but makes more sense when it is installed at the NAV partner and provided as a service.
So these are the general changes I see.
That point, plus your other point about the product becoming TOO technically advanced are excellent. NAV is a far, far superior product today than version 2 was (which I started with), but when I think back, some of the core selling points for it (that made it VERY successful were):
- It's a simple system to administer and maintain (ideal for companies with little or no in-house IT capabilities)
- Everything is inside NAV in a cohesive solution, so it's simple to roll out
- We can modify almost anything to meet your exact needs
You're right in that today, the above points have been disregarded and priorities moved elsewhere (well, the third point is still ALMOST there...but we are definitely more limited). I find NAV 2013 an exciting product overall, and it is great to be able to do so many things visually that were not possible back in version 2...but at the same time I am concerned that the path forward has been planned out around completely different goals/priorities than some of the original core competencies.
http://www.epimatic.com
There's going to be a market for the Out and Off people at least for the foreseeable future.
All of your concerns are valid and I assure you there many influential NAV partners and MVPs that are not too pleased with this release and are voicing their opinions.
My suggestion for you guys would be to keep kicking and screaming on blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.
One person can't make a change, but if all of us complain about it, they will listen.
Originally Directions served that purpose, but that purpose has since been lost... So there's really no organization for partners to collectively voice their concerns to Microsoft.
AP Commerce, Inc. = where I work
Getting Started with Dynamics NAV 2013 Application Development = my book
Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV - 3rd Edition = my 2nd book
In many ways NavTech days offers some of what Directions lost.
Thanks Alex.
Don't worry, after 8 years of being MVP doing these things I can handle something... 8)
I do believe/hope that MVPs have some of Microsoft's ear. And I know/am convinced they have enough cheerleaders inside their own organization. So I think an MVP's job is to convey the reality outside of their own bubble, regardless if they will like what they hear or not (or if they will like you afterwards or not). Of course, there is the possibility he agrees with MS (see his new signature) and then I just don't get how he could see things that way ...
And, the closest I have seen MVPs go on a "crusade" publicly is the PRS project. While in itself it is not a bad idea, from my perspective from the frontlines of actual implementations and real life customers, talking about that is like talking about what shoes to put on before running out of a burning house ... And if this project had happened 4 years ago I would have wondered why it is addressed at partners: even if I internalized those concepts, until NAV was rewritten from that perspective anything I would do after the fact would be of limited impact and benefit.
And last, I am at NAVUG Forum this week and heard a rumor that NAV SPLA price (/user) will go up next year by 20+%. If that IS true, I honestly plead with Mark or any of you MVPs to explain to me what justifies the increase in price and how is that helpful in selling NAV? In the meantime I will just hope the rumor is not true ... ](*,)
Alex is right, there will be tons of possibilities to be Out and Off. Just make a choice! That's al I am saying.
As for PRS, I am one of the ones who started this initiative and we are getting somewhere but it is just a slow process.
Sorry if you understand me wrong.
Next week, the week after that and the second week after that I will be at MDCC, Antwerp and in Redmond and trust me I am always debating everything with them.
I'm not easy to deal with.
On the other hand, just imagine "IF" this In and On thing would work. Just IF, would it not be great to write software for 1000nds of users? We are far away from being able to design upgradable solutions in NAV and we need Microsoft to change stuff.
Our PRS session at Antwerp should be recorded and I urge you to download that when it becomes available and listen to what we think Microsoft should change.
NAV has always had a very sizable niche for the companies that cannot or will not run off the shelf packages and want to customize it
NAV is by far the best package I have come across for customizing and when done properly, it is self-documenting.
This also lends itself to embedded ISV products like Lanham, LS Retail, Cost Control, etc. - which most of the time are then customized to meet customer requirements.
Other software packages go for a layered approach where the changes or ISV products do not change the original source code.
There is a place for each approach.
http://mibuso.com/blogs/davidmachanick/
I think as soon as Microsoft adopt PRS and convert the Navision base application to these standards, that it will take off extremely fast.
In all fairness, how many functional blogs about Dynamics NAV do you see out there?
Sorry to burst your bubble, MVP don't mean shit. Like I said before, they listen to us as much as they listen to you. Which is not much. All of the really good suggestions that the MVPs made are promptly ignored because MBS management wanted to do something else.
Someone please bitch directly to Hal Howard (or Hal Johnson) at Microsoft about what you really think. He will not give a rat's ass about you or what you're trying to do.
I'm interested in seeing how far they go with this. My guess that this will somewhat be implemented in 2019... maybe.
I, as a MVP (whatever the hell that means), state that this is complete and utter bullshit. The pricing does not align with the strategy.
AP Commerce, Inc. = where I work
Getting Started with Dynamics NAV 2013 Application Development = my book
Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV - 3rd Edition = my 2nd book