Microsoft Dynamics December Product Releases Deliver New Capabilities and Value to Customers

REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of the company's unprecedented period of product launches, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq "MSFT") today announced that significant updates to three core Microsoft Dynamics business solutions are available in December, delivering new capabilities and value to help customers transform their businesses.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is available to customers now and additional product refreshes will be available later this month, including Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (planned for Dec. 19) and Microsoft Dynamics December 2012 CRM Service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (beginning mid-December).

These product updates underscore Microsoft's continued commitment to enable companies around the world to transform into Dynamic Businesses. In a rapidly changing world, companies need a new generation of business solutions that are quick to implement, easy to use and seamlessly interoperate with Microsoft platform technologies for maximum synergies. 

"Our December product releases deliver significant value to customers through simple-to-use and easy-to-implement business solutions,," said Kirill Tatarinov, president, Microsoft Business Solutions. "This wave of new Microsoft Dynamics' capabilities, together with Microsoft's innovative social, mobile, collaboration, productivity and analytics resources, inspires people to do their best work and transform their businesses."

The market appears to have taken notice as the Microsoft Business Solutions organization, which develops and delivers Microsoft Dynamics products, continues to grow. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM business has experienced double digits for the past 33 quarters with its revenue growing 30 percent last quarter (year over year). Similarly, in the most recent fiscal year, Microsoft Dynamics AX saw an increase of more than 50 percent in license revenue in North America.¹

Speed in Enterprise Implementation Marks Availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2

As the pace of doing business increases and more opportunities open up in emerging markets, organizations are asking for solutions that can be deployed quickly, empower their people to make more informed business decisions and help their businesses grow globally. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is globally available and allows for multiple languages and legislations to be run from within a single instance. With significant advances across all core industry areas, the flexibility and agility is unprecedented — even for companies looking to use Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 in combination with legacy solutions and get the benefits of a modern, next-generation business solution here and now.

Harmonizing global operations is being done with great speed in enterprises such as Sematic Group, a global manufacturer of elevator components that is currently running operations in Italy, the U.K. and China on a single instance of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. This provides centralized insights into the operations and a platform to find synergies between the locations. With the country localizations in one solution and centralized deployment, planned rollout to additional locations will be easier with an astounding average of one country per month for the next year.

"Having a common repository for customer, supplier and product data has driven initial efforts at standardizing common business processes across our international organization," said Luca Caremoli, chief information officer at Sematic. "Now, with a single, common ERP, we are becoming one. Our people across the world are becoming a real part of the one Sematic."

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 also introduces breakthrough business intelligence capabilities based on Microsoft SQL Server. Important information to all parts of a business is provided quickly, intuitively and in context of what the individual user is doing. This ease of use and speed is critically important for better decision-making in a business such as Lotus F1 Team, which recently implemented the new version of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. The team chose Microsoft Dynamics AX to collect live, accurate information, make informed decisions, compete for funding, and — ultimately — build a fast car. This implementation will help improve manufacturing productivity, avoid wasted resources, deliver information quickly to remote employees and interoperate with its HR environment to manage the skill sets it needs for new processes.

"Microsoft Dynamics is key to our business transformation. On the one hand, it will enable us to ensure everyone on the team is focused on doing their job and not wasting time moving information from one system to another," said Patrick Louis, CEO, Lotus F1 Team. "Second, it will help us more rapidly make changes to the car and how we make the car so we can bring performance-enhancing improvements to the track faster."

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013: Quick-to-Implement, Easy-to-Use Business Solution for SMBs

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, expected to be available Dec. 19, introduces significant new features and capabilities designed to help small and midsize businesses (SMBs) grow their businesses with powerful business solutions that are quick to implement and simple to use. This release introduces an innovative new Web client, more than 125 feature enhancements, streamlined management and rich interoperability with other Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Office 365.

Key enhancement areas for the new release include the following:

• Choice in how the product is deployed, as well as how people access and use it. Customers can access Microsoft Dynamics GP through a rich client and an innovative new Web client so they can get to the information they need when they need it and on the device of their choice. Improved "hostability" features include a new hosting management console for cloud deployments to streamline deploying and managing Microsoft Dynamics GP in the cloud.
• Faster, lower-risk deployment with new RapidStart tools that can significantly reduce the time and effort required to configure Microsoft Dynamics GP for each customer's specific needs.
• Improved productivity through enhanced ease of use throughout the product, as well as deeper interoperability with Microsoft Office, Office 365 and other Microsoft technologies.

One of the early adopters of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is Western Precooling, a provider of cooling services to produce growers and shippers, enabling them to get fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables from the field to their customers. The company has been in business for 70 years and has more than 100 sites throughout the Western United States growing regions.

"With the advancement of the consumerization of IT in the workplace, users want to gain access to data much quicker to make timely, strategic changes in the business and keep an edge on their competitors," said Brian Paine, director of IT at Western Precooling. "Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is helping us improve customer invoicing, thus leading to better service and faster turnaround with our valued customer base while ensuring the highest level of customer service. In addition, the advances in business intelligence, reporting and user experience made in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 equip our people to do the best job possible, which helps put Western Precooling on a course to be more competitive and accomplish its business goals."

Great User Experience in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update

Delivering on the Microsoft Dynamics commitment to rapidly innovate, the CRM December 2012 service update will be available beginning mid-December with a global rollout that will last into January. The new service update re-imagines the way sales, customer service and marketing professionals work with CRM. Moving away from the traditional data-centric approach, this service update adds new experiences that simply and visually guide users through their business processes. In addition, the new service update brings customers deeper connection to Yammer and Skype, embedded Bing Maps, compatibility with the new Microsoft Office, and cross-browser support² enabling new levels of communications and collaboration for customers.

Customers such as Colliers International see the value of the usability features of the new service update and the simplicity of use, particularly the speed and ease of getting their people up and running on the new system.

"We are excited to take advantage of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM service update because it is so simple to use that all of our people will be able to embrace it," said Veresh Sita, chief information officer, Colliers. "This new user experience is no longer a barrier but an enabler, allowing us to reap immediate benefits."

A new Dynamic Business video demonstrates the plans for the revolutionary user design that is part of Microsoft Dynamics' future vision for a new world of work.

Further Information

More information on the new capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/erp-ax-2012-r2.aspx. Details on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 are available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/dynamics. More definitive information on the new capabilities in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 service update is provided in the release preview guide, which can be downloaded at http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/polaris.

About Microsoft Dynamics

At the heart of every successful business are the people who make things happen. Microsoft Dynamics designs modern business solutions that empower individuals with intuitive tools that allow them to do their best work. Our proactive, easy-to-use business applications adapt to the way people and systems work, enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and be forward-looking in an ever-changing world.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

¹ License revenue year over year as reported during Microsoft quarterly earnings.
² Cross-browser support including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome running on Windows-based PCs, and Apple Safari running on Macintosh desktop computers. In addition, there will be a Safari-based user experience on Apple iPad for sales users.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.