Microsoft says it will converge ERP through a common tech platform.It's not a rumor. Project Green is dead or at least on life support. Converging Microsoft's Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management suites to a single code base is no longer the objective for the Dynamics development team.
Rather, like Oracle, with its myriad ERP and CRM suites underpinned with Fusion Middleware, Microsoft is converging its four separate ERP suites through a common technology platform that is comprised of Microsoft's technology stack—SQL Server, Visual Studio, BizTalk Server, Workflow Foundation and others.
"What we went out and said two years ago is that we would go out and converge the product and that was the priority No. 1 for Dynamics. We don't see that as a priority any more," said Mogens Munkholm Elsberg, general manager for Microsoft NAV and AX. "We think that over time we will add technology to the products that will be similar—like the SharePoint integration, like Web services, like the UI…It doesn't make them one code base, but it does make them closer to one another."
Several years ago Microsoft began talking about the concept of combining its four ERP suites—GP, AX, NAV, SL—into a single code base. The project, code named Project Green, was initially slated for release in 2006, a date that was quickly extended to 2008. At the 2005 Convergence conference, Microsoft announced that Project Green would be available in waves—two, to be exact.
The first wave of Green—completed at this year's conference with the upgrades of GP, AX and NAV—includes a shared user interface based on common and configurable roles. The four suites are also integrated with Office and share several common environments including SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint Portal.
The second wave of Green, initially slated to begin shipping in 2008, would have a model-driven approach to business processes that include capabilities from WinFX and Visual Studio .Net. The following year would be the converged code base.
Read the full story on eWeek: Project Green is Dead-for the Foreseeable Future, at Least
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