Microsoft extends Dynamics ERP; adds support for Azure cloud

IDG News Service - Microsoft has completed a series of moves aimed at making its Dynamics AX ERP software a more viable option for large enterprises, and plans to showcase them this week during the Convergence conference in Atlanta.

Dynamics AX 2012 R3, the latest version of Microsoft's high-end ERP (enterprise resource planning) offering, will be available May 1 both in on-premises form and on the Windows Azure cloud infrastructure service, Microsoft announced Tuesday.

Customers will be able to run AX 2012 R3 in full production form, for development and testing, or as a disaster recovery instance in conjunction with their on-premises deployment, said Christian Pedersen, general manager of AX, in an interview prior to Tuesday's announcement.

"We're seeing a very positive reaction from enterprise customers around this, especially in environments where they're adopting Azure as an infrastructure service," Pedersen said.

Dynamics products have traditionally been sold exclusively by Microsoft channel partners around the world, who then tweak and customize the core software for customers' needs.

This won't change with the arrival of Azure support for AX, but Microsoft will nonetheless become more closely involved with customers' day-to-day operations.

New Azure-based application life-cycle services for AX will provide ongoing health monitoring of customer systems, identifying potential problems that need fixing. The services, which are similar to ones offered by SAP and Oracle, will be provided as part of customers' existing maintenance payments and are available for both Azure-hosted and on-premises deployments.

Early adopters of the service have been able to resolve problems in a "significantly" shorter period than before, and in two-thirds of the cases have done it on their own, Microsoft said.

AX 2012 R3 will also introduce a brand-new application and services framework geared toward rapid development of mobile apps.

Microsoft plans to showcase one such app, which gives delivery truck drivers a way to organize their stops and plan routes, during Convergence, Pedersen said. It will also discuss a new application for shop floor workers that allows them to send information about production jobs with touch-based Windows devices.

Partners who have begun using the new framework are showing "an incredible amount of creativity," Pedersen said.

Overall, Microsoft is making "credible moves" against the likes of SAP and Oracle in the ERP market, said analyst Frank Scavo, president of IT research firm Computer Economics. "They're not taking over significant market share, but they are being seen as an option for larger companies."

Microsoft is also planning to make a number of announcements related to CRM (customer relationship management) on Tuesday.

The next release of Dynamics CRM will be available in the second quarter and features new capabilities for marketing automation, social media monitoring and customer service, which were gained through the acquisitions of MarketingPilot, NetBreeze and Parature.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2014 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Open source challenges a proprietary Internet of Things

Computerworld - The only limit to the Internet of Things isn't imagination or technology. It's the vendors. Will your Whirlpool, Maytag or GE washer be able to communicate with your Samsung TV or Apple iPhone, Sears' oven or any other device?

Without interoperability, consumer devices, electronic appliances and sensor-equipped wearables won't recognize each other and communicate. It will make scenarios, such as this one, difficult:

You walk in the door of your house from a five-mile run and biometric sensors in your clothing automatically connect to the home network. Your workout data and health information is uploaded and analyzed by a cloud-based app that may also add this data to your electronic medical records. Meanwhile, this information is also used to automatically adjust room temperature to a more comfortable-post workout setting. A stereo system suggests music to match your relaxed mood. You settle in.

Dinner goes into the oven, and the workout clothes are tossed in a washer. A TV is turned on and the room lights automatically adjust. A message appears on the TV screen alerting you that dinner is ready, and another informs you that the wash is complete. A cellphone text message from a friend inviting you to see a movie appears on any number of multiple home screens.

There is no consumer electronics vendor large enough to force the interoperability that can do all the things in that scenario. But there are vendors large enough to frustrate the path to it by building an Internet of Things mostly around their products.

Into this electronics disconnect steps the open source industry, which believes it has the method, the process and the clout to drive the electronics industry toward a true interoperability. But does it?

We may know in less than 12 months -- at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next January -- whether an effort by the Linux Foundation to bring interoperability to the Internet of Things is going anywhere.

In December, the Linux Foundation, a non-profit consortium that promotes Linux adoption, created the AllSeen Alliance. It took a code stack developed by Qualcomm called the AllJoyn Framework and put it under its open-source umbrella.

This C++ code supports the major operating systems, chipsets and embedded variants. Any electronics or appliance maker, or even an LED light bulb maker that uses the AllJoyn code will have a basis for connectivity with another product that also uses the code.

At the 2015 CES you may see, if all goes well, marks on various electronics indicating their use of AllSeen. There may even be Intel Inside-like stickers on products.

Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, believes that AllSeen will be adopted by vendors.

For vendors that want connectivity, the question is simple: Do device and appliance makers want to write software for every single product or smartphone "or do they just want to go download this code and put it into their product and know that it's taken care of?"

Having such code available will deliver the network effect and propel device interoperability, said Zemlin. "You are going to see a lot of products this year with this code in it," he said.

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Apple's CarPlay vs. MirrorLink: Is there a need for both?

Computerworld - Both MirrorLink and Apple's new CarPlay will eventually be able to duplicate some iPhone functions on your car's in-vehicle infotainment system, but MirrorLink can also handle Android, Windows and Blackberry phones. So do we need CarPlay?

As Mercedes Benz became the first car company to demonstrate Apple's new CarPlay interface for iPhone 5 and later models at the Geneva Motor Show, it also reemphasized its support for MirrorLink's OS-agnostic standard for the same purpose.

Mercedes is a founding member of the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), a group of automobile and mobile phones makers developing "MirrorLink," a uniform standard for the integration of smartphones into auto radio head units or in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems.

The goal of Mercedes-Benz, alongside the integration of iOS and Android-based devices, "is to offer maximum compatibility for smartphones with other operating systems," the carmaker said in a statement.

Along with MirrorLink, Google's recently launched Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), aims to connect Android phones and IVI systems. The OAA is also backed by Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai and chip maker Nvidia.

"There's not going to be a single automaker just choosing CarPlay. It's short-sighted to do that," said Mark Boyadjis, manager of Infotainment & HMI systems at IHS Automotive.

A demonstration of the MirrorLink API in a Mercedes Benz.

Today, automakers such as Ford allow users to plug iPhones into USB ports and get limited access to apps such as iTunes and streaming music services such as Pandora through proprietary APIs. But MirrorLink and other industry standardization efforts are focused on creating OS-agnostic interfaces.

Like CarPlay, MirrorLink connects a smartphone to a vehicles IVI system via a USB cord and drivers immediately gain access to phone applications via the car's navigation screen and dashboard/steering-wheel buttons.

In 2011, Alpine's ICS-X8 IVI became world's first radio head unit to incorporate the MirrorLink standard. The IVI MirrorLinks with Nokia Android smart phones.

"What's very interesting, when we look at what Apple just put up on their website, that's what we've been doing for two years. The MirrorLink experience looks like [CarPlay]," said Alan Ewing, president of the CCC. "It really validated the approach we'd already taken. But, we think the best mousetrap should win."

Apple is not likely to join the CCC anytime soon, since Apple tends to choose proprietary solutions over shared ones. But the MirrorLink standard supports third-party app developers and could someday introduce a workaround, allowing iPhones to connect to IVIs.

""The Apple [CarPlay] is just one standard. Right now MirrorLink is not compatible with iPhone..., but it can be," Boyadjis said. "It's basically going to be a battle between iPhone, Android and Windows, as well."

MirrorLink is a device interoperability standard and API that basically mirrors smartphone apps on a vehicle's IVI system. The IVI must carry the MirrorLink API on a specific chipset in order to work with certain smartphones.

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