Microsoft Dynamics AX and NAV BREP Policy Change for North A

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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 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.