In Microsoft's World Partner Conference (WPC), Microsoft released project Madeira, a new platform that looks a little bit like a simplified mix of Office 365 and the basic modules of Microsoft Dynamics® NAV. Although this is something that is an exciting prospect, one of the big issues that people have had in general is understanding the difference between all of the Dynamics products. Let's take a look.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an online-only business software solution. This is made up of two offerings:
- Dynamics 365 Business Edition: This is Project Madeira (essentially Dynamics NAV and Office 365 fully integrated), aimed at small businesses that need a limited and off-the-shelf solution.
Project Madeira is the code name for a new cloud offering hosted by Microsoft inside Office 365. The solution is based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Some of its features are as follows:
- Madeira was originally the code name for the next version of Dynamics NAV.
- Microsoft has been working on making Dynamics NAV, a first class citizen on Azure, and in Office 365. With NAV 2015 and 2016, companies can already connect their on-premise ERP solution to Azure Active Directory and their Office 365 account and run a hybrid cloud/on-premise solution.
- This works really well for midsize and larger organizations.
- Madeira Microsoft is now taking this one step further by hosting the solution themselves and making the onboarding very easy.
- Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition: This is something new based on Dynamics AX, CRM online, and Office 365, again fully integrated.
Dynamics 365 is not a replacement for the existing Dynamics products. In fact, Microsoft has made it quite clear that Dynamics NAV will continue to be developed, and a lot of the new tools and functionality will be available across packages.
The following screenshot provides the difference between the two. The Business edition provides the Financials choice apart from Sales and Marketing, whereas Enterprise edition provides the latter and some more functionality:
