Did anybody hear from the Project “Green Code” by MBS ? It should be the next generation product.
Yes What do we know about it? It is the replacement from Great Plains, Navision and Axapta and is due to be released as beta in Q4 2004, So that means it will be ready by Q3 2005 and usable in green V3.01 in Q2 2008!!! It will be based on .NET and is also know as the business framework. It will operate on SQL only so no native database or other database engines. The actual Navision replacement will be written in C# on top of the business framework. All this is based on rumour as is wholy intended to pass disinformation, but can any body prove me wrong. Paul Baxter
Here is an interesting Quote on Project Green The Microsoft Business Framework, in turn, builds on the .Net framework, adding more functionality to be used by partners as the base for custom applications. “Who really wants to write another general ledger?” asked Mitch Ruud, product planning manager for Microsoft Business Framework Paul Baxter
The Microsoft Business framework will build on the microsoft business Network which as Microsoft says :- The offering will rely on the Microsoft BizTalk, SQL Server and Exchange Server stack. MBN also builds on users’ familiarity with Outlook and Office applications. “You stay with the apps you know, use Outlook to send/receive mail, and then plug in capabilities as needed so Outlook can expedite B2B transactions,” said Marcus Schmidt, lead product manager for MBN.
MBS Game Plan Product , Status , Ship , Description Microsoft Business Portal, Now available, April 2003, Exposes Great Plains data in browser-based portal view Microsoft Business Network, Beta, June 2003, RTM Software to enable partners to exchange data with each other, suppliers and customers with rekeying MBN as MBN but hosted as a Service, Early beta, Late summer, Same capabilities Project Green, Development, Q4 2004
The rumours that I’ve heard say that Project Green should be the original “next generation project team” the former Navision Software A/S added expert developers from Damgaard and that this “product in development” was one of the reason for why Microsoft paid so much for Navision A/S. After the MS merger Great Plains also added people to the project team. The team actively started their work in 1998, when Damgaard released Axapta (where Financials was a three year old product). But still today the team is dominated by former Navision developers, so from a Navision point of view I personally expect a lot from this new product.
I heard the same thing and that microsoft was all ready working with damgaard and then Navision to develop the “Next generation project”. This was the main reason that they ended up purchasing Navision as they knew that they had a product in the pipeline that would fit in with their future needs. But I am sure that the project has taken on a bigger life of its own to fit in with the Microsoft business frame work which is simular to and built upon the .net framework.
To bring some more ideas to the discussion: If Navision was developing a next generation software already for one or two years before they were taken over by microsoft the development was “just” continued by MS. That means there might be a product much earlyer than in 5 years as MS says (of course they have to say 5 years to keep the cusomer buying Attain and Axapta). Do you think we have a next gen. product in 2 years ? I really don’t belive that ms takes 5 years time to release a competitive new product and give that long time to their competitors to develop their own software for small and medium sized business (e.g. sap).
What i know is that after MS bought GPS, they start to develop the next generation, the Business framework, in fact, i think it was two years ago in stamped, MGP show a little bit what it will be the business framework. I think the interest of MS in Damgaard start very earlier, in a develepment Summit inn Lisbon of GPS, before they were bought by MS, someone from europe show the Damgaard product to the responsibles of worldwide development and they were very impressed with the product and take a copy to US, i think it was the main reason for MS bought Navision.
MBS comments the rumours: http://fscavo.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_fscavo_archive.html#106545713594821571
In regards to when we will see it, the latest rumours are that it will not be release before MS is ready to launch the next server generation called longhorn. That is scheduled for Q2 or Q3 2005. Also another rumour is that Axapta is left alone. The reason being that it’s more of a Tier 1 solution compared to Navision, Great Plains and Solomon.
. . .One addition to this topic, PeopleSoft will be providing some services via a new set of Microsoft Modules for Navision that “will” be available next month. Yes, the word is, “next month”. All the best, Mark
Does anyone know what functional modules will be included? I also heard they are doing a quarterly subscription for licensing. True?
Microsoft is slowing down… …development work on a new family of its business applications - known as “Project Green” - and is instead focusing on the products it currently sells. Because the first products now won’t be out until 2008 at the earliest, the number of developers assigned to Project Green is being reduced from 200 to 70, Microsoft Senior Vice President Doug Burgum said Wednesday. Microsoft originally had planned to ship the first results of Project Green as early as late 2004. “We have made a decision to move resources off Green and back on the core product lines to strengthen those product lines because we realize now that it is going to take much longer,” Burgum told a federal court in testimony in the U.S. Department of Justice’s case to block Oracle’s takeover of PeopleSoft. With Project Green, Microsoft aims to solve what Burgum called its “embarrassment of riches” - the company’s four overlapping sets of business applications that it gained by purchasing Great Plains Software of Fargo, N.D., in 2000 and Navision of Vedbaek, Denmark, in 2002. The applications cover management of finance, human resources, customer relationship and other business tasks. Microsoft plans to build completely new business applications on a single code base that will eventually replace its existing offerings. The new products will depend on the delayed “Longhorn” versions of Microsoft’s client and server operating systems. The Longhorn client is expected to ship in 2006 and the server version in 2007. The decision to reassign developers off Project Green is a reversal in strategy. Microsoft Business Solutions executives last year said the company planned to have two-thirds of its developers working on the new products by mid-2004, with one-third focused existing products. Microsoft Business Solutions has about 1,200 developers worldwide, Burgum said. The process of reassigning developers is currently underway, Microsoft spokeswoman Janelle Poole said Thursday. Poole could not say when Microsoft made the decision to scale down work on Project Green, but did say development will begin in earnest after the Longhorn client is released. Microsoft Business Solutions, headed by Burgum, although still loss-making, is a key part of Microsoft’s strategy for growth as it looks beyond its maturing Windows and Office franchises. “Microsoft fully believes that the business applications market for small- and midsized businesses is a potential multibillion-dollar business,” Poole said. Burgum’s testimony and internal Microsoft documents related to Project Green entered into evidence in the Justice Department’s case provided some more, previously undisclosed, details on Microsoft’s plans for Project Green. A “Market Requirements Document” reveals that Microsoft plans to target new customers only with the first release of Project Green. “There will be no specific effort yet to convert existing MBS customers to Green,” the document reads. Furthermore, Release 1 of Project Green will be a subset of the functionality that Microsoft offers in its current Axapta, Solomon, Great Plains and Navision products, Burgum testified. The next version, due in 2010 at the earliest, would offer functionality at par with Microsoft’s existing products, the Microsoft Business Solutions chief said. Microsoft has committed to support the existing Business Solutions products until 2013. Project Green Release 1 products will be targeted at core small business, low midmarket and core midmarket companies, which, according to Microsoft’s taxonomy are businesses with between 10 and 49, 50 and 99 and 100 and 500 employees, respectively, according to the market requirements document. The second release of Project Green would extend into the upper midmarket and the corporate account space, companies with between 500 and 1,000 and between 1,000 and 5,000 employees, respectively, according to the Microsoft document. Microsoft is ambitious and hopes to expand its reseller network to 15,000 partners by the time the Project Green products come out, according to a PowerPoint presentation used as evidence in the Oracle-Justice Department trial. Microsoft Business Solutions currently has 6,000 partners, Poole confirmed. According to the same PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft is aiming for a 30% market share, based on revenue, in the business solutions space by 2011. The company held a meager 4.9% of the worldwide ERP market in terms of revenue in 2002, according to data from Gartner. Competition in the space comes mostly from local vendors as well as global players who traditionally sold only to large enterprises but are moving down-market. Microsoft in its “Market Requirements Document” identifies Intuit, The Sage Group PLC., SAP AG, Visma ASA and Exact Holding NV as its top competitors. ----- Source: NetworkWorldFusion ( http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0625microputs.html ) br,
Well, it seems like the wait could be longer … But, then why has MS added the SQL granule for free in my 3.7 license? Perhaps some changes will come faster … like the move to SQL … now that’s good revenue for MS 
Oh well, -john