What do you think about the new licencing policy?

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-06

Hi friends,

I've just recently heard a livemeeting about the new licencing policy. What do you think of it?

A) Will it be favourable for those partners who concentrate on add-on sales and use NAV only as a development environment and a financial/accounting backoffice part of their solution package? (Most successful NAV partners work this way.)

Will it be favourable for those partners who mostly sell the standard (Less lucky idea, but maybe you got some very patient customers...)

C) What do you generally think of it?

Luc_VanDyck · 2006-07-06

Maybe you can tell us first what the new licencing policy is all about?

Marije_Brummel · 2006-07-06

Miklos Hollender wrote:

A) Will it be favourable for those partners who concentrate on add-on sales and use NAV only as a development environment and a financial/accounting backoffice part of their solution package? (Most successful NAV partners work this way.)

Eh, what is exactly new about this? I have not heard the livemeeting, but I have used NAV this way in all the add-on's I've built and designed. :?

Just do your own stuff and interfact/use NAV whenever it is appropriate but don't redesign stuff that is not meant to use want you want to use it for.

Alex_Chow · 2006-07-06

I haven't heard about the licensing policy, however, just released today is the new pricing based on the per user model.

The new pricing is available on PartnerSource.

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-07

Hungarian MS held a livemeeting yesterday for us, did it not happen to you as well?

Then it's up on the PartnerSource.

Basically, the important things seems to be the "Business Essentials" licence which is something like Navision Standard but without user count limit.

Marije_Brummel · 2006-07-07

User based pricing is introduced in NL for some years ago.

mvliet · 2006-07-07

i just heard something about the new pricing/licencing methods:

- Userbased pricing

Customers are able to buy two versions of navision:

- Standard, no parts (new word for granules) are possible.

- Advanced, parts (granules) can be added.

Pricing is per user per part !

that's what i understood....but they just got out of the new pricing/licensing session with microsoft an hour ago

Marije_Brummel · 2006-07-07

Ah, so in NL it's changing to. :?

Waldo · 2006-07-07

I heared that (in the future), microsoft is moving to "named users" instead of "concurrent sessions". Someone else heared about this?

ara3n · 2006-07-07

It would make sense in Europe where people work for a company for longer period. In US this doesn't make sense. People don't work more than a couple of years. Specially in tech industry. On the other hand it might encourage companies to keep their employee.

DenSter · 2006-07-07

I think named users is assanine, it is the stupidest form of licensing around.

Marije_Brummel · 2006-07-07

Maybe it has something to do with security moving to the IIS layer. :?:

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-07

What I think the best would be is to make buying many users, but few standard functionality cheap. Currently, if you just go with the absolute minimum for 30 users that can be EUR 50K or so and if you add 25K for some decent add-ons to do the real work it's a bit too much I think...

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-07

I have also seen a graph that showed that below 10 users it can be cheaper than now, but over 25 it can be more expensive. Strange thing - while NAV5.0 seams to aim larger businesses than NAV's main competitor SAP B1, the licencing seems to want to aim to the same level.

Then fun thing in the livemeeting was that for 1000 users you only get about 50% discount - in the old times, 400 users on group level in 10 countries got you at least a 70%. I think it's still possible now, just not being communicated

andrejsm · 2006-07-08

Hi,
From my point of view, this new licencing policy was introduced for several purposes:
1) Navison will include all neccesary functionality. For example advanced dimensions are included even in the essentials editions. No more situations, when, sales people present one functionality, but after sales customer buy only basic Navision functionality without all these sweetpoints. Customers will be more satisfacted, because if they will buy Navison, they will get all what they need.
2) The pricing model will be more clear for customers. Only two choices: a) manufacturing required - Advanced management b) no manufacuring - Essential edition. And only few additional granules.

Alex_Chow · 2006-07-08

The only thing on the price list that was a bit confusing for me is that there are 2 editions of Navision.
1. Microsoft Dynamics NAV - Business Essential Edition
2. Microsoft Dynamics NAV - Advanced Management Edition

The BEE costs a lot less than the AME, however, the granules looks similar. Can someone shed some light on this?

andrejsm · 2006-07-08

The main difference between NAV - Business Essential Edition and NAV - Advanced Management Edition is that Advanced Edition includes Manufacturing and Job modules. If you are manufacturing company, than you need Advanced edition.

kine · 2006-07-11

Short description of the licensing: http://blogs.msdn.com/jpalmer/archive/2 ... 61724.aspx

Official press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/pres ... ingPR.mspx

davmac1 · 2006-07-11

We are now up to 67 pages of explanation on Navision pricing. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft know how to simplify things?

Alex_Chow · 2006-07-11

davmac1 wrote:

We are now up to 67 pages of explanation on Navision pricing. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft know how to simplify things?

It's not that bad. If you want inefficiency, take a look at the US tax code.

Soumyadip · 2006-07-18

is the new price sheet (according to new licensing policy) is available in partnersource??

andrejsm · 2006-07-18

Hi,
Yes, new price list is available at partnersource.

elma · 2006-07-19

Hi,

we don't like all those changes, but some of them are OK. Now we can configure the licence for smaller clients, comparing to UBP it is cheaper now.

Nobody comments enhancement - 16%?!
Some of granules are cheaper (comparing to the previous pricelist), but the effect of that number 16 is not good :roll:

What happens with subsidiaries?

As someone already mentioned, we are not sure about possibility of extending BRL Essentials. Funny example, what if choose Essential and we need just to add Calendar?! We need to switch on BRL Advanced model?!

As we have no choice, we should start finding reasons why we should like those new models of licensing =P~

By,
Elma

Soumyadip · 2006-07-19

aaaa

Soumyadip · 2006-07-19

andrejsm wrote:

Hi,
Yes, new price list is available at partnersource.

can you please post the link?

Alex_Chow · 2006-07-19

Soumyadip wrote:

andrejsm wrote:

Hi,
Yes, new price list is available at partnersource.

can you please post the link?

If you're a MS partner, just log on. The link is on the left hand side where it says Pricing & Ordering. This is for the US partnersource.

andrejsm · 2006-07-19

Somebody in Microsoft calculated, how to increase sales by 6% - and solution was so simple - 16 % enhacement. 8)
But it's not so bad, because Microsoft is also thinking about more benefits from enhacement. There will be "unlimited online training benefit" included in enhacement and maybe something else.

Savatage · 2006-07-19

deadlizard wrote:

davmac1 wrote:

We are now up to 67 pages of explanation on Navision pricing. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft know how to simplify things?

It's not that bad. If you want inefficiency, take a look at the US tax code.

16,845 pages :shock:
But Luckily with todays technology we now know what they listen to in hell :evil: on their Ipods.

Listen to the tax code on a podcast :-#
http://bojack.org/taxpod.html

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-23

BlackTiger,

Item Tracking in the standard is a piece of crap, so I think you don't really need it. Remember the white papers. In early versions, you could enter one Serial No. into each document line. It was clear, usable, and simple. Then they figured out that an order line can have a quantity more than one... and instead of writing a very simple function that every sane person would do, that asks for an integer and copies an order line that many times, they decided to go with this horribly complicated, user-hostile tracking they have now... forget it, better to buy or build an add-on. Even if you think Serial No. tracking is more or less acceptable in the standard, Lot No. tracking just sucks: there is NO First-Expiring-First-Out picking policy and so on. And there are nice add-ons for that. I have met with a German company called Sievers SNC who have a nice warehousing add-on that can do FEFO and so on.

Andrejsm,

If you are a manufacturing company, and you don't fit into the model employed by NAV, which roughly consists of the following parts:

1) Demand-oriented "pull system" planning (as opposed to the more usual supply-oriented "push system" one: one big purchase every year or so)

2) Workshop or homogenous machine center based planning: you take a given lot, say, 100 of something, throw into a homogenous machine center constisting of four CNC lathes, let it run for an hour, take it out, throw into the next machine center etc.

then FORGET IT, and look for add-ons.

Standard Manufacturing is not really "standard", rather looks like an add-on for demand-oriented "pull system" and workshop or homogenous machine center - based planning, quite a vertical one, for a very narrow market.

bruno77 · 2006-07-24

Mikolos,

Maybe I am missing something here but I think you are bashing the NAV manufacturing functionality unjustified.

Regarding item tracking and enter serial numbers, why would you want to copy an order line 50 times or say 100 times just to be able to enter a serial number on every line, do you understand how much data you are duplicating when doing that, it is not only bad database design but also imagine shipping out that quantity, would you have the shipper fill in the qty. to ship on every single line, ok I guess you could auto fill it but still!

Entering a serial number isn’t that complicated in standard, it requires 2 clicks on the mouse to open the Item Tracking window, but that isn’t that bad, and if you think 2 clicks is one to many, then add a shortcut button, shouldn’t take more the 5 minutes, or better yet use the standard shortcut keyboard combination to open it up “Alt+L+T”. I don’t have any experience with FEFO, but we have clients that use the Lot tracking capabilities in NAV without complaint.

The one thing I am missing when it comes to Lot and Serial number tracking in standard is a good overview of all the serial numbers and Lot Nos. that are in the system, as well as a view where you can follow the flow, so we created one, after all it is just a form, and since creating a new form isn’t hard the client can get the view layout exactly the way they want.

Regarding manufacturing, is NAV a fit for everyone that does manufacturing? Of course not, but it is very feature rich and as a lot of out of the box capabilities. I am by no means an all around manufacturing expert but I work with clients that utilize a lot of the manufacturing functionality in Navision, customized of course, to fit their specific needs. We use Demand Planner to forecast the years demand which feed the Production Forecasts, and then MRP analyzes the forecast, the actual demand (consumed, netted) as well as the planning parameters (safety stock, etc.) to drive the supply (production order creation and raw material purchases, where the raw material in most cases have long lead times) and it works very well. If I am not mistaken this is exactly a “Push System” (we are also about to introduce Capacity Planning in order to simplify the actual production floor planning process).

"Push system is based on Customer Orders (Demand) and the forecast. Based on the demand, both material and capacity planning is done. Shop floor control is based on the demand and orders. Here both the material flow and the information flow are in the same direction. This is generally suitable for Make to stock situation. MRP is a Push system"
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/erp/planning ... stem-10571

And as you said, NAV works great in a “Pull System” as well (Make-to-Order)!

“A Pull system on the contrast is based on Made to Order situation. The material is flow is in the reverse direction of document flow. The shop flow control is based on the actual requirements and is close to Just in Time. Pull systems utilize the real demand (Customer Orders received), where as the Push systems are based on the Forecast and build for expected Orders.”
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/erp/planning ... stem-10571

Again, I might have misunderstood you, but in my opinion NAV manufacturing is very powerful and as any other NAV module, very easy to customize in order to fit the exact needs of the customer.

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-07-24

Quote:
there is NO First-Expiring-First-Out picking policy

I need 1 hour to implement this from scratch in standard tracking.

It's a bit hard to believe. I found I have to modify the code at least three places - the one where new Bin Content is created, the one where it's updated, and at picking - and it still only worked with Inventory Pick, one would needed at least two other modifications to work with Whse Pick. And when there are five modifications, then buying a standard granule just does not make sense, it's a lot more sustainable and maintainable to rewrite it from scratch in an add-on.

I can't really imagine what you like in Tracking. Lot-within-a-lot (bag->box->pallett->truck) is missing. Does not give salespeople a list what lots to sell quickly because they will expire soon. Hard to handle picking with bar codes. Integration with reservations is fragile (last time I checked: 3.7A ) Sales recall - giving a list of sales of all products manufactured from a material lot X - is missing, one has to implement it himself. Transfer Order entry by Serial No. bar codes - if one buys a given EAN range as it's the proper way to handle barcodes, then barcodes are globally unique, so it would make sense - is missing. Simply moving whole Lots between Bins or Locations is missing. Lot Size in Mfg. not integrated with Lots. So many stuff are missing that it's better to design an own one I think.

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