The 2015 AXUG Summit last week in Reno was active, full of information and illuminating in many ways, but here’s what we learned:
Too Many Versions, Too Little Time
The good news is that AX2012, AX2012 R2 and AX2012 R3 have so many improvements and added functionality that they are like 3 distinct new versions. For the first time in recent memory the overall customer reaction to the new products (AX7, Power BI, Azure and even Windows 10) is not skepticism, but enthusiasm. Are the people still on AX2009 simply going to skip AX2012 and go right to AX7? How soon will Microsoft deliver a data migration tool from AX2009 to AX7? While we all wait for the decision, Microsoft bowed to the inevitable and extended support for AX2009 until 2018…whew!
LCS May be the Best Innovation that No One Has Ever Seen
In every session that had a Microsoft presence, their people were BEGGING users and Partners to go look at Lifecycle Services, which has actually been around in a more simplistic form for some time. Anybody who has seen it knows that this represents a revolutionary approach to managing implementations, improvement projects, business process mapping and code management in AX (a daunting task all by itself). The way it manages and simplifies hybrid deployments (on premise & cloud) is pretty darn cool. It’s great, but like the tree falling in the proverbial forest, it really doesn’t matter if no one has seen it. Go look at it! It may be the single most compelling argument for moving to AX7 as soon as possible.
The Best People to Help AX Users are…(wait for it)…AX Users!
Every user I talked to raved about the pre and post conference training sessions, as well as the conference sessions themselves. Every session I attended included the highest level of end user participation and engagement I have ever seen. People weren’t staring at the floor, they were fully engaged in some pretty lively conversations. Any large organization out there using AX is ill served not sending functional users to this conference. Period.
Dynamics Communities are Really Quite…Dynamic
Anybody who has watched the growth of this company over the last decade has got to be impressed with the increased quality of these user conferences. The sessions are better, the training is better, the conferences are more organized and the experience itself is more relevant to AX users and Partners. Well done!
BI, BI Miss American Pie
Let’s face it, getting information out of AX in a dynamic (and inexpensive) way and delivering it to multiple devices has haunted all of us for some years now. It was great to see Microsoft and the ISV vendors finally responding to the concerns that many of us hear in AXUG Chapter meetings constantly. New and innovative ways to solve this market demand dominated the conferences, product sessions and the Expo floor. The wide variety of products and approaches is a great development for the user community.
Friends, at Last!
Anybody who’s been around since the advent of the UG Communities knows that the relationship between these groups and Microsoft has been tentative at best. Have we finally turned the corner? For the first time, I saw many high level, strategic executives from Microsoft in sessions, in the hallways and at the events – engaging end users and Partners in meaningful conversations. I applaud both Microsoft and Dynamics Communities for making this happen. It bodes well for all of us!
A great event and a great experience – if you miss it next year, you only have yourself to blame.
