By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco 7 Sep 2005 23:35
Microsoft paints underachieving MBS range as Dynamics
Microsoft is putting a little pizzazz into its business solutions (MBS)
range - a line that's missed key product delivery dates and revenue
expectations.

The diverse enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship
management (CRM) line has been unified under the "Dynamics" brand.>>
Microsoft CRM becomes Microsoft Dynamics CRM,<< Great Plains becomes
Dynamics GP, Axapta becomes Dynamics AX, Navision becomes Dynamics NAV, and
Solomon becomes Dynamics SL.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief software architect, promised a "huge
commitment" to business applications, calling this market "critical to our
vision."

Gates was speaking as his company unveiled new accounting software and an
integrated server roadmap for small and medium businesses (SMBs) as part of
the Microsoft Business Summit in Redmond, Washington, on Wednesday.

The Dynamics brand has been adopted to suggest "energy and motion that helps
move a business forward" and the "flexibility and adaptability" of the
product, according to Microsoft corporate vice president Tami Reller.

Re-branding comes after MBS's Project Green suffered shifting roadmap
deliverable goals, while MBS itself experienced poor sales execution that
finally saw the group last year placed under Microsoft's energetic chief
executive Steve Ballmer.

Also announced at the summit was Centro, which has been billed by Microsoft
as bringing together the planned Longhorn Server operating system and
Exchange Server along with security and management capabilities. Microsoft
said Centro would provide greater integration, security and automation of
specific tasks.

Microsoft, meanwhile, launched Office Small Business Accounting 2006 and
Office Small Business Management Edition 2006 to manage sales, marketing and
finances inside the Office suite. Small Business Accounting 2006 includes
the ability to store frequently entered transactions as templates and manage
payroll through Excel. Office Small Business Management Edition 2006
features Office 2003, Business Contact Manager Update, Word and Excel.®

Rob