Triple Century For MS ERP

Microsoft's mid-market ERP solution, Dynamics AX, sees good
uptake in its first year

In less
than a year Microsoft's ERP offering for SMBs has found more than 300 takers.
In the next one year the growth for Microsoft Dynamics AX, as it is called, may
well be in triple digits, MD of Microsoft Corporation India, Neelam Dhawan,
projected.

The fast customer
acquisition in this segment can be attributed to the ground-up engineering of
the product as opposed to customization of an ERP solution meant for large
enterprises, as many high-end vendors seeking greener pastures in the SMB
segment do, she stated. The top tier market is now saturated, with the number of
large enterprises not having ERP counted on fingertips. The traditional Indian
small market-which till sometime back probably had not felt the need for an
ERP-is undergoing a change. With many companies in this segment competing
internationally now, the need for having better processes in place has been
felt.

Microsoft's
advantage: it could perceive the opportunity in the small market and start at
the bottom of the pyramid. “Our software requires even less hardware to run on
it because it is meant for a smaller environment. It does not have overheads.
Any other software, which comes from 'enterprise downwards' (the large
enterprise), will have overheads on the hardware that is high. Our solution
needs smaller servers and the application is efficient,” Dhawan said, on the
sidelines of a media conference in Hyderabad.

It is easy to use
because the ERP links into exchange and Office. The implementation time is less
at three weeks to a month. And it is potentially a complimentary solution to
SAP-you can have SAP at the backend and Dynamics in the front-for a company
having a huge network, it doesn't make sense to have SAP everywhere. The hub
and spoke model, as this approach is called, is also being eyed by accounting
software king Tally, who is entering the mid-market ERP space. With 300
customers, Microsoft already has headway in the game and it will be interesting
to watch the battle.

Disputing the
perception that customers are moving towards an integrated suite as opposed to
stand alone products, Dhawan said in India and particularly among the SMBs, the
modular approach is “The customer here wants to start with something small. If
it works and he sees his investment protected, he would go in to implement the
next module.” 

Therefore, she is not
overtly worried about certain parties calling CRM and BI dead. “BI or CRM
(Microsoft launched Dynamics CRM recently) is so complex that saying it's dead
may be right if they don't make it simpler. Why are we excited about this
space? Whether it is CRM or BI, we link it back to Outlook and messaging. When a
customer is in the CRM, it is like he was in Office. We will be successful
because we are providing a framework, which every person is used to,” she
said. 

Secondly, in BI, her
confidence stems from the fact that one can give commands in spreadsheet or
Outlook and need not get a software person to write it.

While Microsoft is
certain to run into SAP even if it pitches its ERP as SAP's complimentary
product, the two are also collaborating on the much talked about Mendocino
project, which, the company holds, will be a turning point for SAP. Report
writing, the biggest customization that happens in SAP, will be the most
simplified thing to do once Mendocino happens. “If you have SAP at the backend
and want to cull out some information and report, today, you have to call in one
of the big implementer who will then write a program to do it. When Mendocino
comes, you will go into Office, the Excel Spreadsheet, define the rows and
columns you want and it links into SAP and pulls it out. This will make the
front end of SAP very attractive to customers,” Dhawan said.

In the consumer
segment, where affordability is an issue, Microsoft is coming up with a 'good,
better, best' product line to cater to all categories of buyers. At the low
end is the upcoming multi-lingual Windows XP Starter Edition, especially created
for first time users, and at the top end is the Media Center, which is doing
great business.

Also coming up is the
Windows Vista, priced specially for the government and education sectors as also
volume buyers in select program.

Goutam Das  

goutamd@cybermedia.co.in