Well, I am here at Convergence and it seems that every year Microsoft sets a new attendance record. Sitting in the community lounge area, I noted that this year we are expecting in excess of 7,000 attendees at Convergence. That’s up from a little less than 4,000 attendees in 2003.
Some things are better organized, and as you might expect some are not. Check-in was a breeze thanks to some smart thinking, but when a young lady directed me to open portal, things went amiss. Poor marks to the signage and coordination folks, who had some people going in two directions to hear the kickoff session this morning.
Listening to the speakers this morning – Jeff Young, Tami Reller and Satya Nadella – I was impressed with what I saw and heard concerning the Microsoft Dynamics product line and the future investments that are coming down the line. As a Navision reseller, (oops, Dynamics NAV reseller), I was pretty jazzed, but what is coming in version 5.0 of NAV product? Pretty cool stuff and something that I know our clients will like to see and use.
The kickoff Dynamics NAV session this morning with Mogens Elsberg (product manager) and Kim Ibfelt, was great. I saw some additional features of 5.0 up close and I was impressed. Lots of features and role-based activity coming to the user community. And, the interaction with Office is going to be fantastic! I know our clients will love it.
I also heard some great news today that some time in the past 30 days, NAV sold its 1 millionth concurrent session for end users. That’s a great milestone for the NAV product
and NAV continues to be the number one seller in the Dynamics product group.
Well I have to leave now to go hear the Dynamics guru himself, Doug Burgum, pontificate about the future. This is usually pretty entertaining stuff. Later, the South Central Microsoft Business Partner group is holding a reception and I must stop by to see what tidbits they offer.
Stay tuned, and yes, Gates will be demonstrating Dynamics NAV 5.0 on Monday!