Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers the power of the cloud to businesses

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 19, 2015 — Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced that the next release of its flagship ERP solution, Microsoft Dynamics AX, will be generally available in the first quarter of 2016. The new release, architected for the cloud, brings the power and intelligence of the next generation of cloud computing in an enterprise-class business application to people and organizations worldwide.

Microsoft announced that a public preview of the new solution for customers and partners will be available in early December. Revealing the new name of the release, Microsoft Dynamics AX, the company departed from branding that included years or versions of the product to a simple brand that underscores Dynamics AX is a cloud-based service that will be regularly updated. The company will also implement a new, simple and transparent subscription pricing model to make it easier than ever for organizations to purchase the solution in a way that helps them grow at their own pace.

“Our ambition to build the intelligent cloud comes to life with apps optimized for modern business, like Dynamics AX,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise. “When you combine the hyperscale, enterprise-grade and hybrid-cloud capabilities of Microsoft Azure with the real-time insights and intuitive user experience of Dynamics AX, organizations and individuals are empowered to transform their business operations.”

This latest release delivers a new, intelligent user experience, optimized to deliver value to organizations by enabling them to make smarter decisions faster. It brings proven business processes to the cloud, which means that the full set of capabilities of this solution will be available to customers from day one. Dynamics AX introduces continuous management services that enable the software to quickly adapt to an organization’s business needs. The new Dynamics AX also harnesses the power of the cloud, giving businesses and people global availability and scale to work anywhere, anytime so they can grow at their own pace and on their terms.

A new user experience to accelerate decision-making

Businesses are looking to empower their people with tools they want to use and to enable them to make smarter decisions faster. To enable this, Dynamics AX offers a new user experience that looks and works like Microsoft Office and delivers deep integration that seamlessly shares information between Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM and Office 365. It gives people near-real-time analytics powered by Azure Machine Learning with the ability to visualize data through Power BI embedded right within the application. This gives users not only the information they need, but also predictive capabilities built right in the application. Dynamics AX offers a fully browser-based, new HTML5 client which gives people access to Dynamics AX across platforms and devices and enables organizations to extend and build business-specific mobile applications. Based on extensive usability analysis, the redesigned Dynamics AX brings a new touch-enabled, modern user interface that uses the principles of highly visual applications that users expect in consumer applications to their enterprise business applications.

Quicker implementation and easier management

ERP systems have traditionally been known for their rigidity, complexity, and slow deployments and implementations. Dynamics AX is changing the game in this area with revolutionary new technology that continuously enhances rather than disrupts business processes and operations. Bringing forward the breadth and depth of proven business processes in horizontal and vertical industries, including retail, manufacturing, distribution, professional services and public sector, the new Dynamics AX brings the complete capability of the product to market on day one and uses the cloud to provide ongoing service and management to adapt to business and industry needs. The new release also introduces enhancements to Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services, an Azure-based service that allows for turnkey deployment with prebuilt, industry-specific solutions available in the Azure Marketplace and automated setup on Azure, empowering customers to deploy faster with higher quality. The new Dynamics AX delivers a more flexible solution architecture that enables incremental implementations, changes and updates, giving businesses more agility and faster time to value.

Enabling business through the power of the cloud

Businesses are looking for flexibility and choice in how, when, where and at what pace they bring their operational systems to the cloud. Building on the global Microsoft Azure platform, with its strong commitment and capability to meet diverse data locality and data sovereignty requirements, Dynamics AX is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of global customers. The new release brings with it the benefits of the cloud that are most important for business — from simple signup, immediate provisioning, and built-in high availability and disaster recovery to elastic capacity to add resources but only pay for them when they are being used.

The Lotus F1 racing team knows first hand the benefits of Dynamics AX. “The beauty of Dynamics AX is that it will help you make better informed decisions faster, and ultimately increase your business potential to take business operations to the next level,” said Thomas Mayer, chief operating officer, Lotus F1 Team.