Satya's Blog : Office

The Laws of Simplicity

satyanadella — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:58:00 GMT

I recently read The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda . He has a cool web site as well. In the Dynamics group there is a lot of passion around this subject. John’s first rule – REDUCE: Simplicity through thoughtful reduction…strikes me as the most critical,...(read more)

Convergence EMEA – NOV 6th-8th 20006, Munich, Germany

satyanadella — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 08:02:00 GMT

Today in Munich the Microsoft Dynamics team will kick off its first Convergence customer conference for the EMEA region. Over 3,200 customers and partners from 75 countries will come together three days of learning and networking. We’ll have keynotes...(read more)

Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 - New Wave of business software for Small Business

satyanadella — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:50:00 GMT

New wave of business software for small businesses launches tonight!! Check out www.ideawins.com late Sunday night. Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 Express… is available for free download!! We have three 3 core themes driving our innovation on behalf...(read more)

Office Business Application services & Dynamics

satyanadella — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:17:00 GMT

At Tech Ed, Microsoft will announce Office Business Application (OBA) services. This announcement nicely builds on the previous two posts. Think of OBA as the platform support for “business mash-ups” in Office. To date we have been using Sharepoint 2.0...(read more)

MBS @ Tech Ed - Extensibility, Customization and Business Mash-Ups

satyanadella — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:08:00 GMT

At TechEd Darren Laybourn & James Utzschneider will be presenting a keynote at the MBS track. As usual lots of demos are planned. There is a new RSS feed demo for Dynamics AX 4.0 using its web services framework (AIF). They will go through how to...(read more)

CRM Mobile, LINQ, Proclarity

satyanadella — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 04:22:00 GMT

We just hit RTM on CRM 3.0 mobile client. Two cool features – over the air sync support & also much better support for setting up of perimeter/internet facing topologies. Looking forward to seeing the feedback on this release. We need to plan for the next steps on what we do here and also in general our mobility investments across CRM and ERP and will be nice to get feedback on scenarios and also infrastructure support needed.

I got a chance to read up a bunch on LINQ over the weekend. This is something that is close to the heart of what we in Biz Apps care about. X++ has SQL extension built in today and it will be nice to have this in the .Net languages. This coupled with more “models” that reduce total code and also tools not just for professional developers but end users is what we are going after.

Also today Microsoft announced the acquisition of Proclarity , BI analysis and visualization tools. We already exploit SQL BI and also integrate with Business Scorecard Manager and will look to see how can take advantage of Proclarity technology to help with further “guided” BI within our apps.

Dynamics - "Light -Up" on Vista & Composite Applications - Bill Gates at Convergence

satyanadella — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:09:00 GMT

Watch for the Dynamics client demo tomorrow at Convergence. It’s an immersive roles based user experience that shows how we adapt Windows Vista & Office 2007 UX concepts to Dynamics. You will see how “stacks” from Vista can help give you visual cues on how to prioritize work. “Ribbons”, from Office 2007, help with command presentation. And the “breadcrumb bar” from Vista will help you traverse back the application path that you take. The coolest part will be Dynamics “light-up” on Vista. We will show the power of Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) controls on Vista as part of Dynamics user experience. Also we will "mashup" Windows Live local as as part of the user experience. The key takeaway is that these user experiences can be customized for specific verticals and roles by our partners & customers.

Also we will show our first composite app where we automate the process of on-boarding a new vendor into your ERP system. The app was built using Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) on SharePoint and integrates with Dynamics AX logic/data using its web service interfaces. What I really like about the scenario is the fact that an end user can add ad-hoc workflows on top of what a VAR/IT provides you, using the native capabilities of SharePoint in Office 2007. This proves the point that, for all the process standards out there, there will always be un-planned and personalized extensions.

One announcement to watch for is our connectors for Dynamics CRM. We have several internal projects within Microsoft, where teams are using Dynamics CRM to surround Siebel to benefit from our middle tier that is easier to extend and a user experience that is native in Outlook and a natural part of their work!! We are going to release sample code between now and WPC (July 06 in Boston) that builds on the great work that BizTalk team has done around connectors to enable the integration of core entities between Dynamics CRM and legacy CRM systems from SAP and Siebel.

Dynamics - 15 Demos in 20 mins and 3 Major relesaes in 12 months!!

satyanadella — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 07:56:00 GMT

At today’s Partner Day at Convergence, I got a chance to do 15 demos in 20 min as part of the opening Keynote with Tami Reller !! Thanks Graham Sheldon & Darren Laybourn for staying up all night getting the VPCs all staged. Next time we will remember...(read more)

Dynamics Web Services - Business Mash-Ups; Composite Apps; Integrations

satyanadella — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 06:28:00 GMT

Web Services in Dynamics Wave 1 releases. What is the intent behind them?

The core vision behind what we are doing is Roles Based Productivity. To deliver on this vision, you have to start with “People” and really connect them up to their “work” (i.e. process). In the real world most people’s work is split across multiple applications and the “seams” show. Web Services is the foundational infrastructure that helps us get rid of the “seams”.

Web Services support in Dynamics is helping us with the following scenarios:

1. Business “Mash-Ups”. What we recently released with Dynamics Snap is a good example of this. We use the Web Services exposed by Dynamics to enable users of Outlook to do Time Entry or Vacation Scheduling directly without having to leave Outlook. We also enable you write a letter to a customer using Word wherein you want to look up Business data from Dynamics regarding that customer’s cases, or invoices, or any other business entity. You can think of this class of applications as “mash-ups” of Office and Dynamics. You can also extend this to doing “mash-ups” of Dynamics with the Web. A good example of this is a sandbox sample code on how to “mash-up” CRM with MapPoint (Mapping in CRM). Also another very useful tool that we will be releasing soon (on CRM Sandbox) enables you to create an RSS feed for any CRM entity. This for example will allow you to get an RSS feed with the latest opportunities or cases on any PC or device with a browser/RSS reader.

2. Composite Apps. Many business processes today span the boundaries of structured/un-structured & formal process/ad-hoc workflow. Take for example – Recruiting. Your finance person creates a requisition in Dynamics. Then you have your recruiting person login to Sharepoint portal to initiate an interview process and finally additional folks in HR and IT get involved in on-boarding the employee. This is a business process that is composite of formal data and process (creation and approval of requisitions) in Dynamics and more semi-structured/ad-hoc workflow (interview process) and both need to be linked together into one seamless collaborative business process. Again with Dynamics exposing Web Services and exposing them enables you build these Composite Collaborative Apps. We will focus on building such apps on top of Sharepoint and you will see us do several demos of these type of apps at Convergence.

3. Integrations. The more “classical” use of Web Services has been to reduce the expense of integrations. Within Microsoft our IT is using Web Services to support the integration of Dynamics with some of the other legacy Enterprise apps such as Siebel and SAP . A good example of this the XBOX team using Dynamics to manage their production planning, while still integrating with financials in SAP. We are see this as an increasing trend in our Enterprise accounts where Dynamics is being used to “surround” legacy enterprise applications to take advantage of the more user friendly user experience and a more agile customization model. At Convergence we will talk more about some additional connectors to these legacy Enterprise Apps that we will make available for Dynamics, building on work that the BizTalk team has done.

The Web Services work is the foundation that enables the above three application scenarios in support of our overall vision of Roles Based Productivity. We will talk a lot more about this at Convergence. Our goal with our Web Services work is to ground this in Community feedback, just as we have done with our User Experience. We want really anchor the Web Services we work on and their behavior on real world application needs. I am trying to convince our program management team to have Web Services lounge areas similar to how our UX team reaches out to the Convergence audience… I have some additional convincing to do!!

(PS: I am told that Jeff Hensel and others are doing focus group on Web Services. So I don't need to worry about convincing anybody that reaching out to the community as we define further advances in Web Services is the way to go...)

"People-Ready" Business & Microsoft Dynamics

satyanadella — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:06:00 GMT

This week Steve Ballmer and Jeff Raikes launched the Microsoft's People-Ready vision. At the core of this is the idea that software that empowers people will help businesses achieves next level of productivity gains.

My first post from last March was about putting “people” at the center of our design. One of the core themes for our Dynamics Wave 1 releases is around “roles based” user experience. Our User Experience teams has done some amazing work in doing the deep anthropological research for each of the roles within business and this context is what is influencing the significant investments we are making in delivering user experiences that transcend both Dynamics and Office “personalized” for the specific role.

A good example perhaps is to look at how a business using CRM and GP together. You have sales people living in Outlook and still getting to the price list from GP and a Finance Manager using the GP Sharepoint portal can get at pipeline data for forecasting and other functions. We are going to be releasing the integration between GP and CRM at Convergence next week and this will set the standard for real seamless integration even at the user experience level.

Also at Convergence our User Experience team will be hosting a UX launge where you will get an opportunity to test and give us feedback on all our “roles based” UX work. Also you can expect to hear more about “People ready Business” and role Dynamics plays (no pun intended) from Jeff Raikes and Bill Gates.

Office Small Business Accounting & Microsoft Dynamics

satyanadella — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 05:10:00 GMT

It has been a couple of months since I have posted – a very busy summer culminating with a very exciting day today, September 7.

We have two major annoucements. Small Business product - Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 (SBA) - goes to customers. And today is an important marker for us in terms of delivering "Green" Wave 1 innovations - role specific user experience, Portal technology built on WSS, integrated Business Intelligence, and Web Services across all our ERP and CRM product lines. Coincident with Business Summit, we are unveiling the name of "Green" – Microsoft Dynamics. We will be shipping versions of Microsoft Dynamics starting this Fall.

It is exciting to see how the fall release of Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly know as Great Plains 9.0 J) will have over 20 roles for which there will be pre-configured home pages containing pertinent tasks, mail and calendar, key reports, metrics and KPIs, and links to specific application areas. The notion of roles based software extends to those roles also who do not necessarily are not bound to a PC on their desk for their work. Take for example a warehouse worker who needs to manually scan items during pick, pack, and ship. Hands free warehouse is automating the entire pick pack and ship through the use of RFID tags and readers and integrating them into the supply chain execution workflow in Axapta (I mean Microsoft Dynamics AX!!). This is giving a tremendous boost to productivity of warehouse workers while reducing the order handing errors. There are many personas that work in field servicing customers, or taking orders etc. A handheld device to quickly take orders, note deliveries, or record service time (with on-line update of ERP system) is much more suitable for these roles. Our supply chain R&D team in Copenhagen is running customer pilots to support field sales and delivery roles through mobile devices.

Additionally, we are incorporating Windows Workflow Foundation in our applications to compose and execute business processes. This is a huge step in making it easy to deal with business process exceptions as they happen and make quick process changes to respond to new needs. We will showcase a lot of what we are doing with Windows Workflow Foundation and also Office 12 at PDC the week after Business Summit.

It was fun to go visit local stores last weekend and see all the merchandizing of Office Small Business Accounting 2006. SBA truly represents the next generation of business management software that provides natural simplicity to managing business processes at the same time not being simplistic. The delivery of “software services” through “smart clients” is unique in Office SBA. Partners such as ADP are taking advantage of this by exposing Payroll as service to SBA customers with in-situ user experience. The early feedback has been great; I would specifically be tracking the ease of use as we drive towards pervasive adoption and catalog of third party solutions that extend SBA both on the client and in the cloud.

One thing that I have my hands on is how we take advantage of simple, yet powerful community standards for data interchange such RSS to solve real hard business problems. The amazing simplicity of making business data available for consumption through RSS makes it possible to chain through business processes. Imagine how businesses could used to aggeregate sales leads from across your distribution channel or how you can use feeds across the supply chain to track information on movement of goods. These is inherently a complex problems with many point to point to custom integrations today. With RSS once can see a path where – a) data is being unshackled from application semantics and being made freely available on the internet; b) end user tools to consume and "re-mix" RSS feeds from multiple sources tames the complexity of business process coordination to something anyone can do. We are building in broad support for Web services and internet facing deployment in our applications to enable these scenarios and will be showcasing MS-CRM’s support for RSS feeds over the internet at Business Summit and also at the PDC. This is a first step in truly “democratizing” business data!!