AX 2009 Technical Journal: Gartner Magic Quadrant

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Источник: http://ax2009tech.blogspot.com/2009/...-quadrant.html
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In a recently published (June 4) research report, Gartner places Microsoft Dynamics AX as the leader in the Midmarket and Tier 2-Oriented ERP for Product-Centric Companies.

"Gartner concludes that only one offering qualifies as a leader in the
market at this time: Microsoft Dynamics AX."

This is good news for everyone involved in both using and delivering services around AX, especially if you are working with AX 2009. I have been blogging about some of the features and changes in AX 2009 already and I find my own oppinion to be very well aligned with what Garter expresses around the technological aspects.

A brief summary of my history with Axapta and AX (from Damgaard via Navision to Microsoft as software vendor):

I first looked at Axapta 2.1 in 2001 and back then, it was considered to be a product with quite rough edges. The company I worked for back then, decided to wait until version 2.5 before doing the first international implementations. We got a lot of experience from these implementations and discovered that the product still had some rough edges (for instance the returning issues around the famous axdat.udb file in solutions with clustered Application Object Servers). Then we got Axapta 3.0 adding more functionality. Axapta was at this time branded as a true international solution, but the requirements for doing a central implementation supporting users in different time zones, was driving the requirement for the number of AOS licensed heavily and such solutions did'nt support access to the data stored in the AX database across time zones (it was at best Unicode enabled if you remembered to enable this before synchronizing the database for the first time). After using more time on finding work arounds to technical issues, I decided to do something else (working with Application Management around another ERP solution) for the next 3 years. This was also in the same period where Microsoft bought Navision. When the opportunity to return to what then was called AX (4) back in 2007, I considered the architectural changes to be right (eliminated the axdat.udb file and put the license/session handling into the database, replaced the AOCP protocol with RPC, buildt a new Web application based on SharePoint, a pure 3-tier architecture and a greater range for very important RecId value). Based on this I decided to give AX a second try. My experience proved that AX 4x was a big step in the right direction with regards to architecture. Now we only lacked support for handling users accross different time zones on one (or several) AOS instances with scaling and redundancy beeing the drivers for the number of AOS licenses required. This was finally introduced in AX 2009 and for the first time, I considered AX to live up to the promise of beeing a true, international solution. Add even tighter integration to other Microsoft products and technologies, and a Web Application "bringing BI to everyone" through a role based Enterprise Portal, and AX 2009 was positioned to compete with the other 2 rivals in the Enterprise Market.

I don't regret returning to AX and I'm rest assured that AX 2009 and later releases, will move further up and to the right in the Magic Quadrant cementing it's position as the most agile and TCO effective ERP solution on the market.

Companies looking for a new ERP solution, should indeed evaluate AX in line with both SAP and Oracle. And existing AX customers should work through their exisiting solution aiming at eliminating customizations or re implement AX 2009 with a clear strategy around utilizing standard functionality to lower TCO over time and keep in pace with new/added functionality.


Источник: http://ax2009tech.blogspot.com/2009/...-quadrant.html