It’s been a busy couple of months since I last posted a blog, and I have learned a ton. Back then my stated near-term goal was to learn about the team, the product, partners and customers. During that time, I’ve had a lot of the feedback I asked for – feedback about what you love, what you don’t love, and what you wish you could love about Dynamics NAV. I’ve heard it from team members, at Convergence in Orlando, at Directions EMEA in Paris, and at many other ad hoc meetings with customers and partners. Overall, it’s been a wonderful experience learning about Dynamics NAV.
The main piece of feedback that I received has been, “when can I get NAV 2009”? The same thing has happened to the people asking this question as has happened to me. If you went to Convergence North America this year or attended Jan’s and my keynote at Directions EMEA, you’ve heard about our User Experience team’s aspiration to make a user interface that users love. Well, they succeeded with the Role-Tailored Client in NAV 2009. I love it! Not only does it capture the essence of NAV’s core values – simplicity, ease-of-use, and flexibility, it has an elegance and beauty that is unparalleled in the industry. This is by far my favorite product to demo. As for when it will be available, we’re on track to ship this fall, as I mentioned back in February. In the meantime, as a registered partner, you can download a VPC image of a CTP3 (“customer technology preview v3”) today and see the accompanying video introduction on PartnerSource.
I mentioned previously that the stakeholders of this product are very passionate, something that I think really drives its overall excellence. I’d like to elaborate on that a bit. Last month, I was at Directions EMEA in Disneyland Paris. (For someone who grew up in Florida, it took some time to get used to Donald Duck and Goofy saying bon jour! ) It was there that I really understood what the NAV partner community was about. There was a buzz in the air about all the products and the companies that collectively make up the NAV ecosystem. Walt Disney said that the secret to making dreams come true is the four C’s – curiosity, confidence, constancy, and courage. He especially admired courage. “When you believe a thing,” he said, “believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” That was courage to him. To me, Directions in both North America and EMEA – how it was established and the momentum that it’s gained – is the manifestation of Disney’s definition of courage. For all of you who have been involved in Directions, whether as founders, contributors, or attendees, thank you from the Dynamics NAV team. In fact, the four C’s have been in full force in every partner or customer meeting I’ve been in, as I suspect they are everywhere people are around the world are working on the NAV ecosystem and using the NAV products.
That goes for the team at Microsoft as well. This team is excited about the product and can’t wait to get it in your hands. I’m not the only one who recognizes this. In one of the videos from the “Speak Your Mind” kiosks at Convergence in March, one person said the following: “NAV offers great functionality in the product … the team shows tangible enthusiasm … they treat the audience like they were smart and significant about the business issues … Hats off to the NAV team – they were perfect!” We gushed when we saw the video. But we feel the same way about our customers and our partners, and I think that’s why our enthusiasm is so evident.
Sincerely,
–Dan