Microsoft Dynamics: What's on tap for 2012?

Microsoft officials are providing more target dates for the next on-premises and cloud releases of its various Dynamics ERP and CRM products on March 19, the opening day of Microsoft's annual Convergence conference.

Microsoft is committing to deliver updates across just about all of its Dynamics lines -- CRM, NAV, AX, and GP -- in calendar 2012. This year also marks the first time that Microsoft will be offering a cloud-based version of one of its four Dynamics ERP products.

Microsoft Dynamics AX: The AX 2012 R2 release will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2012.  Promised features include multichannel retail capabilities with Web storefronts; and role-tailored business intelligence using the latest Microsoft SQL Server technologies. The release that follows AX 2012 R2 (no final name available yet) will be cloud-enabled, officials said.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV: A beta of NAV 2013 is due in May 2012. The final release is due in Q4 2012. The NAV 2013 update will be available as both an on-premises as well as a Windows Azure-hosted cloud offering. The main target for the product is small and mid-size businesses. Microsoft Dynamics GP: Microsoft is reiterating its commitment to cloud-enable (by hosting on Windows Azure) the next update of its GP product, which will be known as Dynamics GP 2013. It will be available "shortly after" NAV 2013 and will be delivered for both on-prem and cloud customers simultaneously. Microsoft Dynamics CRM: The next update of Dynamics CRM with mobile support for a variety of mobile devices, is due in Q2 of this year. There also will be another udpate of CRM in the fourth calendar quarter (known internally as CRM 9), which will include new social and "data-enrichment" services.