Top Five Fun Facts From Convergence 2007

1: Doug Burgum was a chimney sweep before going on to fame and fortune as Great Plains Software CEO and then SVP of Microsoft Business Solutions

2: Fargo will host a Great Plains reunion in mid June. After the Lotus anniversary party, this looks to be the best soiree of the year.

3: Microsoft's Project Green may be dead, but it was dead three years ago when the company outlined is incremental upgrade plan. The company continues to add more shared code to its four ERP lines over time. Great Plains 10.0 workflows will show up in subsequent Axapta, Navision, etc. releases. Solomon's project accounting functionality will likewise be shared by the other ERPs.

.

4: Lynn Stockstad, general manager of Dynamics GP, SL and retail explains the new ERP client menu items. In essence, Microsoft has four price points for ERP users.: The $195 client gets you the general portal for your ERP. You can read and write to some data fields, use the business intelligence and KPIs. "You can change the address in your fields but can't mess with sales transaction data," she notes.

The $395 client adds Microsoft Office SharePoint Server License which means access to workflows. You can route stuff around, search more stuff, use the Excel server applications

The $2,250 business essentials (GL, AP, AR, etc.) remains the same. As does the $3,950 Advanced Financial client. (Adds cash and collections management and other perks.)

5: hmmmm. Lemme think.

After winding up his tenure at Microsoft at the end of this fiscal year, Burgum will make a special guest appearance at the big Randy and Andy bash in Denver at the Worldwide Partner Conference.