Microsoft Corp. kicks off Convergence 2008, the semiannual Microsoft Dynamics users' conference, with keynote addresses by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Microsoft Business Solutions Corporate Vice President Kirill Tatarinov, demonstrating how the company is delivering customer-driven advancements across its business software. The executives will also announce an expansion of Microsoft's long-term alliance with EDS, a leading global technology services company, to extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM further into the call centers of midmarket and enterprise companies.

    Ballmer and Tatarinov will preview - to more than 10,000 customers and partners - powerful new people-ready innovations across the Microsoft Dynamics products, address the power of choice through software and services demonstrations, share new research techniques that are helping Microsoft continue to lead in software usability, and introduce enhanced integration with online payment services and marketplaces. Convergence attendees will get a sneak peek into powerful new capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, scheduled for release in the first half of 2008. It is the latest release in a strong portfolio of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions for midmarket customers that includes Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics SL.

    EDS is incorporating Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a key offering in its global CRM practice. The expanded alliance includes joint solution development, marketing and sales. According to industry analysts, ease of use remains a leading concern for organizations deploying ERP systems. And yet most companies focus on usefulness and usability instead of exploring the impact of desirability and relevance on productivity.

    Every business needs the regularly-scheduled profit and loss statements, in addition to deeper analysis, before expanding into new territories or adding a new product line. Microsoft Dynamics provides software that enables your managers and staff to get up-to-date information on business performance. People can use either pre-defined functions for simple reports, or use OLAP cubes when deeper analysis is needed. Your staff will be working with tools that resemble familiar Microsoft Office Outlook and Excel, so they can get up to speed quickly.

    Sean Finnan, global vice president of CRM Services at EDS noted: "Microsoft Office-like usability, business process agility and a modern, service-oriented architecture platform are among the core strengths of the product that solidified EDS' decision to grow its offerings around Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With this expansion, we will provide great value and choice to customers whether they deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM on-premise or utilize EDS hosting and business process outsourcing services. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform will modernize EDS CRM solutions and underpin a new set of industry-specific offerings."

    The new release will dramatically sharpen businesses' ability to manage their compliance obligations, and allow them to streamline their processes and facilitate work across geographically scattered employees, a growing imperative in today's communications-intensive global workplace. Underscoring Microsoft's unique customer-driven design approach to its business software.

    A key element of Microsoft's approach to software design is the concept of RoleTailored experiences in its family of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP applications. Rather than forcing customers to conform to generic templates, Microsoft Dynamics applications are designed to cut through the clutter to deliver information relevant to each employee's specific functional roles. Not only are Microsoft Dynamics product teams using the aforementioned research to shape future products, they are soliciting user feedback directly with Microsoft Connect.

    Microsoft Dynamics customers can choose between the rapid scalability, low upfront cost and quick setup of hosted offerings that deliver business processes over the Internet or the control of on-premise software that runs behind the company's firewall. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides deployment choice of on-premise, partner-hosted and Microsoft-hosted on-demand offerings. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live is planned to be broadly accessible in the spring of 2008, offering a subscription-based on-demand service, managed from secure Microsoft datacenters.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 enables customers to benefit from the following:  
    - Compliance Center, a one-stop shop for compliance-related information
    - Integrated Workflow Framework, which improves the agility and flexibility of business processes
    - Enhanced global capabilities, such as support for multiple languages, sites, time zones and shared-service scenarios. International businesses will benefit from real-time visibility into daily operations, including supply chain and inventory, as well as order and fulfillment management, of all locations worldwide.
    - Integration of Microsoft unified communications platform to enable real-time communication and collaboration within Microsoft Dynamics applications