NAV 5.1 delayed to Q4 CY2008

alpap64alpap64 Member Posts: 14
edited 2007-10-27 in NAV Three Tier
Just had a contact inform me that 5.1 will be delayed for up to a year and now scheduled to be released Q4 (Oct, Nov, Dec) CY 2008.

There's also a strong runour floating around the corridors at Vedbaek that it might be released as NAV v6. That it's being delayed to make room for the marketing of the next major release of AX v5 and that there are Outlook integration issues to be resolved.

We'll have to wait and see what is announced at Convergence in Copenhagen shortly !
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Comments

  • jlandeenjlandeen Member Posts: 524
    I can't say that I'm really surprised to hear that...but it still sucks.

    Have you heard what this will mean for the last day of Directions 2007? They were supposed to have a version to demo and show to developers...will that still be happening?
    Jeff Landeen - Sr. Consultant
    Epimatic Corp.

    http://www.epimatic.com
  • cnicolacnicola Member Posts: 181
    Well perhaps there was an ulterior motive to have it in Disneyland. And now it becomes all apparent. Who's up for some rollercoasters? :D
    Apathy is on the rise but nobody seems to care.
  • kinekine Member Posts: 12,562
    Yes, NAV 5.1 will be released as 6.0, between that the NAV 5.0 will be released for more countries and there will be possible update for NAV 5.0 (servicepack). The informations was published today, it means I had no time to read them all...
    Kamil Sacek
    MVP - Dynamics NAV
    My BLOG
    NAVERTICA a.s.
  • Alex_ChowAlex_Chow Member Posts: 5,063
    I hope we still see the demo at Directions. This way, we can put more of the partner's opinions into their decisions on the new release.
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    edited 2007-10-12
    Finally!!! They had the balls to release something I had predicted a while ago.

    They have been overpromising a nonworking system. All the marketing guys should be fired.

    They will never release the product. Even when they do, it'll have so many drawbacks compared to the old client, that nobody will use it.

    They should have bitten the bullet and drop C/Side and backward compatibility and auto translate as much code to a .NET language and rewrite and build what could not be translated.

    Solution Centers and verticals would do the same.
    The good thing would be that a lot of bad vertical solutions with crappy code would not be moved.

    As for as training goes, solution centers can hire college grads to do the dirty work and senior people would guide them from design and business perspective. And most senior consultant/ developers will need to learn .NET. It's inevitable.
    They should have spent the time instead on building the development environment in Visual studio to be able to do rapid development (what you can do with old client)

    This whole thing could be done over year. Instead we are waiting 2 years and one more to go.

    I predict that in a year from now.
    You'll get 6.0 that won't be compatible with most of verticals out there. Solution centers will have to rewrite a lot of their code.
    The developer will have limited control with the new client.
    It'll take 3 times as many clicks to enter an order or any other task.
    The new client with service tier will be 1.5 slower.
    It'll take twice as long to do a modification and roll it out.
    The installation will be twice as complicated.
    Upgrades will be impractical.
    my 2 cents
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    Alex Chow wrote:
    I hope we still see the demo at Directions. This way, we can put more of the partner's opinions into their decisions on the new release.

    They should take those demos and throw them into trash. All they are doing is teasing with false promisses with a non working product.
    my 2 cents
  • cnicolacnicola Member Posts: 181
    NavStudent,

    Have you considered anger management? :D
    At this rate you will not make it to the 6.0 release to see if you were right or not. :whistle: O:)
    Apathy is on the rise but nobody seems to care.
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    lol :lol: .

    That's what I mean with "some will be very disappointed".

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • TrippyZTrippyZ Member Posts: 87
    Microsoft continues their dominating presence in the vapourware market.
    Professional Navision Developer
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    lol.
    Somebody has to say it. They've dropped the ball.
    A lot of customers won't wait that long.

    They are paying annually for software assurance, but getting nothing for it.

    Since MS no longer stuck by stupid marketting idea, that 5.0 will be the same as ex 5.1, and no functionality will be added, MS should at least redesign major part of the application and make it more robust.
    my 2 cents
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    NavStudent wrote:
    lol.
    Somebody has to say it. They've dropped the ball.
    A lot of customers won't wait that long.

    They are paying annually for software assurance, but getting nothing for it.

    Since MS no longer stuck by stupid marketting idea, that 5.0 will be the same as ex 5.1, and no functionality will be added, MS should at least redesign major part of the application and make it more robust.

    And what the hell do you think they are doing at the moment?? This is exactly the reason why it's taking this long.

    Anyway ... if you're paying an annual fee ... you expect an annual update?? Let's hope not!

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • alpap64alpap64 Member Posts: 14
    Personally I think it's more political than that.

    IN that a summer release of AX v5 is MS's main event. Again to the detriment of NAV.

    My contacts in Vedbaek tell me that the 5.1 candidate is at the release stage and has been shown to several enterprise level clients with very good response.

    Maybe it's original release date would have taken too much away from AX and they just want to keep pushing AX.

    In any case it is a Marketing disaster and MS have shot themselves not just in one foot both both !!!
  • davmac1davmac1 Member Posts: 1,283
    Mybe MS does not want another Vista... [-X
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    edited 2007-10-12
    alpap64 wrote:
    My contacts in Vedbaek tell me that the 5.1 candidate is at the release stage and has been shown to several enterprise level clients with very good response.

    This (showing to clients) is true.
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    alpap64 wrote:
    My contacts in Vedbaek tell me that the 5.1 candidate is at the release stage and has been shown to several enterprise level clients with very good response.

    This is true.

    If this is true, then they are lying to us.
    WTF.
    my 2 cents
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    What do you mean? Every major software firm has beta customers whom they show beta solutions to look if they are going the right way? They did not implement it, just demonstrated it...
  • Alex_ChowAlex_Chow Member Posts: 5,063
    NavStudent wrote:
    alpap64 wrote:
    My contacts in Vedbaek tell me that the 5.1 candidate is at the release stage and has been shown to several enterprise level clients with very good response.

    This is true.

    If this is true, then they are lying to us.
    WTF.

    Or they're just misinformed. If they are misinforming you, then is it possible your gripes may not be necessary? :wink:
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    Waldo wrote:
    NavStudent wrote:
    lol.
    Somebody has to say it. They've dropped the ball.
    A lot of customers won't wait that long.

    They are paying annually for software assurance, but getting nothing for it.

    Since MS no longer stuck by stupid marketting idea, that 5.0 will be the same as ex 5.1, and no functionality will be added, MS should at least redesign major part of the application and make it more robust.

    And what the hell do you think they are doing at the moment?? This is exactly the reason why it's taking this long.

    Anyway ... if you're paying an annual fee ... you expect an annual update?? Let's hope not!

    The whole point of 5.1 was that no change to the table structure suppose to happen. Thus they could not rewrite anything.
    They are not telling us anything specific so all they could be doing is drinking coffee all day.
    my 2 cents
  • alpap64alpap64 Member Posts: 14
    Unfortunately I think for the first time in my experience it isn't poor marketing or vapourware and delays because of unexpected developments but that MS is deliberately misleading the community.

    Anyone from MS care to defend ???

    I didn't think so !
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    Why on earth would microsoft deliberately want to mislead 60.000 customers? Does that make any sense to you?
  • alpap64alpap64 Member Posts: 14
    Mainly because it wants to push AX.

    The MBS channel couldn't take two major releases of products near each other.

    With NAV 5.1 (or 6 or 2008) with the technology enhancements and additional functionality there is very little gap between AX and NAV, so what do you say to arguably more important Enterprise Class customers to whom MS have spent the last 3 years positioning AX as the flagship product that another product at a lower price point for implementation is now little different from that they made significant investment in ?

    With the new version of NAV why would you choose AX ? yes there might be a few niche markets where there is a requirement but hardly the functionality gap that currently exists.

    So why not delay NAV 5.1 the partners will deal with the flak from customers and they'll survive and see if they can wring some further income out of AX. Remember that in the US significant income is derived from AX implmentations using MS consultants and Project Managers. Hardly a revenue stream they would want to squeeze by bringing to market a new version of another Dynamics product which costs less to implement and has few functionality benefits.

    Finally; MS can engage with large AX Enterprise Class customers, they even have a specialist Dynamics team called "lighthouse" doing this. Whereas they find it very difficult to enagage the smaller average NAV
    client and have to rely on the partner eco system to do this and that doesn't help them. Look how they have struggled to engage with most of the NAV customer base - I have worked in the UK, US, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Russia, France, Sweden, Italy, Singapore and have yet to see MS engage properly with the average NAV customer.

    Hence it's easier to engage with a few Enterprise Class customers, get a team in place to schmooze them, push all the other technologies without pesky partners getting in the way. But now they can't be seen to let them down by bringing to market a product which is technologically very similar, but with a wider installed base, more partners, more verticals and easier to implement !

    That's my take on why they would want to do that.
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    I can't tell you all, but it is not true. Sorry.

    Besides: have you ever found out how the revenue of MBS is devided between AX and NAV? You would be surprised... NAV makes much more money than AX...

    Why don't you just believe the product is not yet good enough?
  • alpap64alpap64 Member Posts: 14
    I don't believe it because I saw the NAV 5.1 client in Vedbaek in Nov 2006 and it looked polished and working well on Vista and XP.

    I then saw a release candidate version again with a major client in February 2007 where I was told by the a senior leader within the development team that they are less than 2 month to a release candidate.

    Also the FAQ released yesterday as to the reasons why it is now been decided to delay for nearly a year just do not stack up. Some of the things were clearly contradictory to what I and the client had been told directly in Vedbaek and subsequently in Seattle.

    Finally I had a access to see some 5.1 documentation that had gone through final review/editing on some of the subjects claimed to be incomplete and requiring nearly a year to remedy !!

    It doesn't stack up. Just watch out for the heavy marketing of AX v5 announcement soon !
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    You are one of the clients?

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • jlandeenjlandeen Member Posts: 524
    I think there are lots of different possible reasons that they have delayed the launch. Market reasons (Ax & Nav product confusion) can definately be it...but having just been involved with a failed project to update another big ERP like system I know these kinds of major changes are difficult.

    If you look at all the functionality that has been added in the last few years to both the functionality and the executables it's quite amazing - Recordrefs, Change Log, Kitting, Error Handling, Debugging. Any new product has to be able to deliver at least the current level of functionality/capabilities while being built from the ground up on a new architecture. That's no small task and it's easy to put things together that demo well but aren't truly functional.

    So I'm glad that they are trying to put Navision on a new architecture and hope they stay committed to really releasing this product version (at least they're specifying a quarter year target now not a half year...hopefully they're getting closer). I think there are lots of reasons to get clients & customers to run Navision 5.0 and I'm trying to stay focused on those concreate positives now.
    Jeff Landeen - Sr. Consultant
    Epimatic Corp.

    http://www.epimatic.com
  • DenSterDenSter Member Posts: 8,304
    There is so much hot air floating around this thread it is actually funny to read :mrgreen:
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    The more they postpone it the better. Waiting another 2 years will be awesome. By that time the other ERP systems will be far ahead of Navision in 2nd wave implementation that MS will just drop 2nd wave for NAV and just move to the new One Product (MS Dynamics). My guess the one product will be Axapta code converted to .NET language. There will be an upgrade toolkit for NAV, and all Solution Centers have to translate or re-implement their customizations. It’ll happen anyways. It’s inevitable. So why go through this intermediate process.
    my 2 cents
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    Can't imagine you're serious about this?
  • NavStudentNavStudent Member Posts: 399
    I'm being sarcastic. But hey anything is possible.
    my 2 cents
  • PerJuhlPerJuhl Member Posts: 55
    I can't tell you all, but it is not true. Sorry.

    Besides: have you ever found out how the revenue of MBS is devided between AX and NAV? You would be surprised... NAV makes much more money than AX...

    Why don't you just believe the product is not yet good enough?

    Right, the difference in revenue from AX to NAV is HUGE, and they don't target the same market and customers.

    If you spend a lot of development costs, you don't, "park" the result in the corner for more than a year. It's just not an option.

    This project and the making of the new NAV 6.0 client is just very, very complicated, but the job need to be done.

    So we just have to wait.

    BR Per
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