The change from Navision, Axapta and Great Plains og Dynamics NAV, AX and GP etc. is making less and less people ask for the products. Do you think that Microsoft is killing the Dynamics products?
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Hi Erik,
About 90-95% of end users still refer to Nav as Navision anyway
Dave Treanor
Dynamics Nav Add-onswww.simplydynamics.ie/Addons.html
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DaveT: Hi Erik, About 90-95% of end users still refer to Nav as Navision anyway
take a read of Erik's Blog first. The issue is not about just what people call the product. The core issue is about new clients coming to Navision. They wont be able to use search engines to make an unbiased search, since they will be searching for "Dynamics" not "Dynamics NAV" or "Navision".
This means that its going to be very hard for customer to shop around because everything will just head towards Microsoft.
In Erik's Blog he clearly states that if they are taking Navision away from us, then give us a replacement.
Let me give you an actual example, this was reported publicly at a recent "Dynamics NAV" event.
(apologies if I am paraphrasing a bit.)
A Navision partner had a prospect and felt very close to closing the deal. The prospect wanted to find out more about the product, which the partner were marketing as "Microsoft Dynamics NAV". Searching brought the client to the MS Dynamics page, of course there is no distinction on that page as to what product. They filled in a questionnaire about their company, and were advised that Microsoft Dynamics AX was the ideal product for them, they went back to the partner and said they were ready to buy. But the partner did not sell "Microsoft Dynamics AX" so they lost the deal. The client bought a competing product in the end, because Axapta was just way over kill for them. (They were a small distribution company that had a very small manufacturing requirement, but the Tick box "Manufacturing" triggered AX.
Now keep in mind that this is a case we know about. So how many do we not know about.
My read on this is that Either Microsoft need to create project green and give us one big product, OR they need to clearly segregate the products (and not by customer revenue) and then let the products compete against one another. I think that fair competition between Navision, Axapta and Great Plains will help energize the market and be of long term benefits to everyone.
The product selector page should NOT tell the prospect which product is best for them, it should instead give them say 10 categories, and then rank the matching in each categroy. Then the prospect can look at which categories are most improtant to them to help decide. Maybe even a "Ranking of each category".
David Singleton - MVP Dynamics NAV Dynamics NAV Consultant since 1991 Available for Navision Go-Live assistanceDynamics Book
David Singleton: A Navision partner had a prospect and felt very close to closing the deal. The prospect wanted to find out more about the product, which the partner were marketing as "Microsoft Dynamics NAV". Searching brought the client to the MS Dynamics page, of course there is no distinction on that page as to what product. They filled in a questionnaire about their company, and were advised that Microsoft Dynamics AX was the ideal product for them, they went back to the partner and said they were ready to buy. But the partner did not sell "Microsoft Dynamics AX" so they lost the deal. The client bought a competing product in the end, because Axapta was just way over kill for them. (They were a small distribution company that had a very small manufacturing requirement, but the Tick box "Manufacturing" triggered AX. Now keep in mind that this is a case we know about. So how many do we not know about. My read on this is that Either Microsoft need to create project green and give us one big product, OR they need to clearly segregate the products (and not by customer revenue) and then let the products compete against one another. I think that fair competition between Navision, Axapta and Great Plains will help energize the market and be of long term benefits to everyone. The product selector page should NOT tell the prospect which product is best for them, it should instead give them say 10 categories, and then rank the matching in each categroy. Then the prospect can look at which categories are most improtant to them to help decide. Maybe even a "Ranking of each category".
Very good David, I've heard similar stories several times, especially coming from the US, where one sometimes feel that Microsoft is pushing AX to everyone who either say DISTRIBUTION or MANUFACTURING. In most of Europe the partners at least are strong enough so they can stand on delivering Navision.
Originally, I believe the concept of calling everything MS Dynamics "..." was derived from Project Green, because Project Green was not put on hiatus until after the renaming had already taken place. I would applaud Microsoft if they could successfully come up with a solution that took all the best qualities of GP, NAV, and AX and rolled them up into one without all the flaws of the individual systems. The problem is I do not think they will now. I think at one point or another they decided to let this "divide and conquer" strategy continue so they could see how the revenue looked. I mean if you think about it, they are able to attack the market and fight competitors at separate levels this way. On top of which, they are Microsoft - a household trusted name among consumer and industry.
I do like the idea of Microsoft going back and using the "full" name of the products. When I worked extensively with Great Plains, I could not go a day without somebody complaining about the system and calling it 'Great Pains". With Microsoft calling it GP, it just takes all the fun out of it, and I like NAVISION vs. NAV because it rolls off the tongue better.
I definitely agree that Microsoft themselves who "DO NOT SUPPORT THE END USER" should NOT be suggesting to the End User which product to choose. That does irk me some. I feel that a "rating" in the separate fields of study that the individual systems encompass would be much more proficient and adequate to the needs of the consumer as well as the partners. This is almost counterproductive on their part, and it is hypocritical.
I do not, however, feel that the name change is "killing" the products. Mark Twain once said, "There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics". In this scenario, I sincerely feel that the reason there is such a decline in the search requests on Google for NAVISION and such, is due to the fact that more and more people are becoming acclimated to MS Dynamics ... whether we like it or not. If you take your two graphs, and you flip the bottom upside down to reflect the reverse trend, you're going to find that the slopes are pretty close. People are just simply resistant to change; it is one of our major failings in life. We become "comfortable" with things as we have learned them to be, and any drastic or even subtle change seems to result in our discomfort. Consider the name NAVISION had never existed in the first place, and that it had always been called NAV...Then this would be a non-issue. (Btw, I call it "NAV" not "en-ay-vee". I refuse to syllabize characters of a name if the individual letters do not stand for a separate word in themselves ... that is just silly.)
Additionally to play devil's advocate to my own argument (because that's the sort of guy I am) there is something to be said in a name. We in this community of developers, analysts, and administrators are obsessed with names; it’s part of our job to be so. Moreover, one of the major benefactors of good marketing is "comfort ability" with a product. Therefore, if the consumer enjoys the name of a thing, the look of a thing, the feel of a thing, then they may be more inclined to go with it. People are impulsive and often take action to things before considering the consequence. Microsoft, an entity and organization made and run by people is no different from the average impulsive individual in this respect. They make mistakes, we know this, but nobody is perfect. We do have to consider that they have some idea as to what they are doing though. They did buy the products, and have made some very nice contributions to them since inception. I'm sure that if Microsoft starts to notice their profits spiraling downward, and we continue to voice our complaints and make ourselves heard, then they will be forced to take action. If it will take a name change to fix the problem, I am sure they will do it.
Cheers