Microsoft invests in ERP solutions

Microsoft Business Solutions has made a series of announcements focused on enhancing and supporting its current line of enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solutions and service offerings.

Microsoft Business Solutions has made a series of announcements focused on enhancing and supporting its current line of enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solutions and service offerings.

To help its small, mid-market segment and corporate customers maximise the effectiveness of current ERP solutions, Microsoft Business Solutions announced the general availability of Microsoft Business Network, the upcoming delivery of two demand planning modules and a strategic extension of its relationship with Autodesk, an independent software vendor (ISV) and a leading design software and digital content company.

The announcements were made during the annual conference of the American Production and Inventory Control Society, APICS 2003.

"Microsoft Business Solutions is making significant investments in our current ERP solutions, which are critical to the ongoing success of our customers and business partners in general and manufacturing industries specifically," said Mike Frichol, general manager of manufacturing industry solutions with Microsoft Business Solutions.

Marcus Schmidt, lead product manager for Microsoft Business Network, agrees.

"Microsoft Business Network is a great example of how we're enhancing our current offerings to allow businesses to streamline collaboration and build more-effective business relationships.

This is a step forward in helping companies truly automate their day-to-day business processes." Microsoft Business Network Microsoft Business Network, the general availability of which was announced today, is a combination of on-premise software integrated with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Business Solutions applications and/or Microsoft BizTalkR Server, and hosted Web services.

Microsoft Business Solutions designed Microsoft Business Network to help businesses more easily and effectively work with their trading partners.

Microsoft Business Network enables businesses to connect their entire network of suppliers and customers through a fully automated Microsoft.NET-connected solution, increasing efficiency with a deep degree of integration throughout their business applications and lowering the total cost of business-to-business collaboration.

Microsoft Business Network is already making a difference.

"Microsoft Business Network is going to save us a lot of effort and, at the same time, allow us to provide our customers with a higher level of service," said B.

Sanny Rahardja, IT manager with Mikimoto (America) Co.

Ltd., a subsidiary of the world-renowned Japanese K.

Mikimoto and Co.

Ltd., the world leader in high-quality cultured pearls.

"Microsoft Business Network's integration with Microsoft Business Solutions-Great PlainsR is simply awesome.

It allows orders from our Microsoft Business Network-enabled customers to flow directly into our sales order processing module." Rahardja already has plans to expand Mikimoto America's use of Microsoft Business Network.

"We want to deploy Microsoft Business Network to our entire customer base," Rahardja said.

Demand Planner Modules To help businesses improve customer satisfaction, maintain optimal levels of inventory and reduce operating costs, Microsoft Business Solutions today announced that it will deliver demand planning modules that enhance its AxaptaR, Great Plains and NavisionR products.

"These new modules will help our ERP customers strategically plan for future demands and adjust their daily operations accordingly," said Jan Sillemann, group manager of mid-market segment solutions with Microsoft Business Solutions.

"In today's business world, that ability is more critical to success than ever before.

We want our ERP customers to have that competitive edge." The modules will help businesses compete aggressively to meet and, whenever possible, exceed ever-increasing customer expectations - a phenomenon that makes it crucial for businesses to align their operations with customer demand.

The Demand Planner solution consists of two modules: DP Power User and DP Collaborative.

General availability for the Axapta and Navision solutions is expected in November 2003; Microsoft Business Solutions plans to announce general availability of the Great Plains module in early 2004.

Autodesk Microsoft Business Solutions also announced today that it is extending its relationship with Autodesk, a leading design software and digital content company, to build a product life cycle management (PLM) solution for the thousands of Microsoft Business Solutions and Autodesk customers in the mainstream small and mid-market segment manufacturing industry.

Microsoft Business Solutions and Autodesk's Manufacturing Solutions Division will collaborate to deliver a solution that lets customers integrate Autodesk's pervasive design data with Microsoft's ERP solutions, giving these companies a way to easily connect the engineering teams that design products with the operations teams that manufacture them.

The companies' mutual customers will be able to more easily track product data by seamlessly linking the engineering bill of materials and change orders created with Autodesk's software to Microsoft's ERP system, a process that, to date, is time-consuming and most often done by hand.

This integration also helps customers improve their competitive edge by providing them with better visibility of their design data earlier in the product development cycle to better control costs.

The solution also allows businesses to move products through the development pipeline more quickly by using reliable data to empower purchasing and manufacturing personnel earlier in the design cycle and manage product data better and more accurately from product concept through delivery.

"This alliance supports Autodesk's strategy to provide the industry's most comprehensive solutions to help mainstream manufacturers create, manage and share digital design data," said Robert Kross, vice president of the Manufacturing Solutions Division at Autodesk.

"We are excited to deliver this integration between Microsoft Business Solutions and Autodesk's leading software solutions that are firmly targeted at solving our customers' most significant business issues.

Working together with Microsoft Business Solutions, I believe we can make a significant impact with customers, helping mainstream manufacturers get better products to market faster at a total lower cost.".

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