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Convergence 2013 will be in New Orleans March 18-21, 2013. Hope to see you there!

Today we are wrapping up the largest Microsoft Dynamics Convergence con fence in history. Over 10,250 people joined me in Houston for the last four days to learn about the "World of Opportunity" open to Microsoft Dynamics customers. Andi it is big. There is so much going on it can be a bit overwhelming. The Expo this year was the largest expo for any Microsoft event. EVER. I spent most of my confence time this year at the expo and I think I saw only a fraction of the available solutions. 

The challenge this year, as I find every year, is figuring out what to do with all the great ideas that I always have aft the event. In the many years that I have been attending the Microsoft Convergence confence, I find that the only way to make progress on my list is to have each member of my team pick one thing that they want to accomplish. Focus on that one thing. Otherwise, you end up with analysis paralysis as all the great ideas swirl around in your mind. So, pick one thing and get it done. Can you imagine the business impact if every one of the 10,250 attendees each picked one thing and got it done in the next 12 months? 

I can't wait to get back to the office the get started on my one thing.

Microsoft announced moments ago at convergence in Houston that the next version of Dynamics GP will be called Dynamics GP 2013 and will release in 2012 Q4. Dynamics GP 2013 will have over 100 new features including prepayments on purchase orders and a Silverlight client that will surface up the full Dynamics GP desktop experience in a web browser...any browser. They just demoed SmartList in the browser and it looks really good. This is the dawn of a new age for Dynamics GP users. It is a good time to be a Dynamic Business!

Continuing the conversation about Cloud Computing, I ran into this article through a Google Newsfeed this week.  It seems to me and to the author of this post http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/03/personal-cloud-2014/ that some companies are not taking Cloud seriously.  Tagging onto my post from a couple of weeks ago, the author agrees with my conclusion that deploying enterprise applications through the Cloud is really the "secret sauce" (my words).  

Cloud Computing's core components have been with us for years.  Virtualization, service provider licensing, remote access, .net development platform.  However, it's only been the past few years that we, as a Cloud Computing Industry, have been able to fully deploy the Cloud.  

The next evolution of Cloud is "app-ifying" specific components of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and BI (Business Intelligence).  We have seen CRM become one of the first applications to app-ify components such as Accounts, Opportunities, Tasks and Activity Management but we must go further.  We must have specific ERP components deployed in a Cloud and Mobile platform for approvals and other tasks that should not require the user to be chained to a desk or a laptop.

BI is really one of the most impressive applications of Cloud and Mobility that can bring the most value to a company.  Imagine being able to keep your fingers on the pulse of your business through a mobile app that shows your key performance indicators on your tablet.  This is expressed by the author as:

"The new iPad may be the most impressive piece of computing hardware I’ve ever seen. Yet its true power is held back by large enterprise software corporations that cannot keep pace with the new devices designed with cloud computing in mind…. It’s as if they’ve completely ignored one of the most successful computing platforms ever built, outselling the total number of PCs its closest competitor sold last quarter."

Further, Gartner has weighed in on the overall Cloud movement with these statements:

Gartner says a number of factors are converging to make for a perfect personal cloud storm by 2014:

Megatrend No. 1: Consumerization — You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Gartner has discussed the consumerization of IT for the better part of a decade, and has seen the impact of it across various aspects of the corporate IT world. However, much of this has simply been a precursor to the major wave that is starting to take hold across all aspects of information technology as several key factors come together:

• Users are more technologically-savvy and have very different expectations of technology.
• The internet and social media have empowered and emboldened users.
• The rise of powerful, affordable mobile devices changes the equation for users.
• Users have become innovators.
• Through the democratization of technology, users of all types and status within organizations can now have similar technology available to them.

Megatrend No. 2: Virtualization — Changing How the Game Is Played
Virtualization has improved flexibility and increased the options for how IT organizations can implement client environments….

Megatrend No. 3: “App-ification” — From Applications to Apps
When the way that applications are designed, delivered and consumed by users changes, it has a dramatic impact on all other aspects of the market….

Megatrend No. 4: The Ever-Available Self-Service Cloud
The advent of the cloud for servicing individual users opens a whole new level of opportunity. Every user can now have a scalable and nearly infinite set of resources available for whatever they need to do….

Megatrend No. 5: The Mobility Shift — Wherever and Whenever You Want
Today, mobile devices combined with the cloud can fulfill most computing tasks, and any tradeoffs are outweighed in the minds of the user by the convenience and flexibility provided by the mobile devices….

“The combination of these megatrends, coupled with advances in new enabling technologies, is ushering in the era of the personal cloud,” Gartner’s Kleynhans said. “In this new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared in the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.”

We have to be "all in" as Microsoft has put it.  Cloud Computing will roll over those who do not get on board!  

A perpetual problem exists: how to keep your ERP system current. When you upgrade your ERP environment, which happens every couple of years or more, there is always another version that follows right in its footsteps with better functionality that you are missing out on. There is no way to justify the cost of upgrading software so soon after the last upgrade and once again you are using an outdated system.

Consider this scenario with Cloud ERP: With Cloud ERP, your business will always be current with the newest version of ERP as well as benefitting from the reduced costs and other advantages which Cloud Computing brings. Using Dynamics GP as an example, let’s find out how changes in technology lead to reduced costs and efficiency which also means your business practices can stay current.

In my last blog post, I described how Cloud Computing allows your business to reduce the initial cost of ERP by using Cloud as opposed to Traditional models. Let’s review in more detail how costs are reduced in a cloud application deployment and demonstrate the cost savings. As we can see below, a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is the main driver in moving business applications to the Cloud but where do those cost savings come from?

With Cloud Computing there is no Hardware to buy, no additional software to purchase and no maintenance payable annually. By reducing these costs, you cut the majority of the costs associated with ERP software. Additional costs for IT Management are not included but are significant as well.

By using Cloud technology, your TCO will decrease because you won’t have hardware to purchase, maintain and refresh or additional software licenses to buy. Instead, you budget and pay a low monthly fee per user. Let’s review the chart below and examine the traditional on premise GP lifecycle compared to deploying GP in the Cloud.

As we break down the graph above, we see an initial spike in costs for both on premise and cloud deployments. The cloud costs level out after the second quarter while the on premise costs continue to spike every year and a half for software upgrades, maintenance and a server refresh after three years. In the cloud, the initial spike is just for implementation and training while on premise includes implementation, training, hardware and software costs.

Notice that there is approximately a $50,000 cost difference between the two deployment methods over a three year period. Imagine being able to reallocate these cost savings to another area of your business like sales which will help drive business growth. Clearly, by breaking this information down, it is smarter to use the Cloud model as opposed to traditional software purchases to implement business applications. Now imagine the cost savings if your business sent everything to the Cloud including Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Dynamics ERP.

Next week, we will look at a how to reduce implementation and training costs when deploying ERP in the Cloud.