The code word Madeira has now transformed into Microsoft Dynamics 365

This is Microsoft’s new approach to end-to-end intelligent business applications in the cloud. Dynamics 365 unifies ERP and CRM into one cloud service with new, purpose-built apps to manage all your core business functions: Sales, Customer Service, Finance, Field Service, Operations, Marketing and Project Service Automation. At the Enterprise level Dynamics Ax will also be an option.

Dynamics 365 is a cloud-only solution built on the Microsoft Azure stack. What excited the partners at the recent WPC conference that Synergy Software Systems’ directors attended in July, was the announcement of an underlying common data model, with deep integrations, coupled with the equally new Microsoft Flow solution and the emergence of Xamarin as Power Apps. So we will see Office 365 seamlessly connect business apps with collaboration and productivity tools like email, spreadsheets and word processing documents, Skype Business. Power BI and a flexible, extensible platform,

Dynamics 365 looks to be a game changer that will enables companies to stay nimble, adapt and innovate in real time. It will launch in the USA probably in November this year with just the Finance functional piece. Other elements will release through next year, but realistically we do not foresee it reaching the UAE as a fully featured solution much before 2018.

The life of the on-premise Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 versions is to be extended by at least another 3 years meanwhile.

Microsoft has steadily been increasing tis presence in social media, with several acquisitions embedded in Dynamics CRM. There was positive endorsement for Microsoft’s cloud and social strategy by the announcement that Facebook has adopted Office 365 ( which ahs now reached 75 million user seats).

The other recent big news of course was their acquisition of Linked-in. There are a number of ways that Microsoft plans to take advantage of its $26.2 billion LinkedIn acquisition, ranging from data-gathering to getting a foothold in social to plans for re-imagining the recruitment and talent management businesses and more.

A more straightforward integration opportunities between the two companies is LinkedIn’s integration with Microsoft Office. Microsoft explained how it could use LinkedIn’s data in familiar programs, like Outlook, Skype, or Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, for example. Microsoft says that today, there’s not a single source for data on individual professionals — it’s scattered around, and is often out-of-date. (And I might add often widely inaccurate or hyped)
By integrating professional profile data into Office 365, email and other communication apps, users may be more inclined to keep that information up-to-date. The data will maybe more visible to friends, colleagues and employers. This of course may be a double edged sword if that that data more easily accessible to anyone who wanted to know more about a professional’s background or experience.

LinkedIn has a sizable network of over 433 million users, yet Office’s footprint is much bigger. Microsoft says there are more than 1.2 billion Office users today. LinkedIn becoming a part of Office would massively increase its data’s visibility.
LinkedIn itself in 2012, bought the Gmail plugin Rapportive for $15 million, which allowed Gmail users to access a sidebar that would show the profile and other social networking updates. Maybe unfortunately, the it took out functionality that made the service popular in the first place, including its integrations with other social networks.Installing an extension into your web browser that changes what your Gmail inbox looks like and what information it displays when loaded in a tab. didn’t address the fact that many users today get their email by way of mobile phones, not just desktop web interfaces.

It makes absolute sense for Microsoft to invest in the messaging capability within LinkedIn, to create an integrated experience between Outlook, Skype and LinkedIn. Traditional email is starting to die off. Instead, communication is shorter and the frequency go3w up, leaning more towards an instant messaging type mechanicism e.g. What’s App, Snap Chat, Twitter.

So, what changes LinkedIn becoming a part of Microsoft,. Well that profile data can become natively integrated into Microsoft’s Office products and other communications apps which could then share their data back with LinkedIn. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explained in an email to employees, that by integrating LinkedIn’s network in Office 365 and Dynamics, the company will be able to enable new experiences like “a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete.”

In other words, LinkedIn’s newsfeed, can become highly personalized and might e.g. know what you’re currently working on, what meetings you have planned and what projects are underway. And as you head into those meetings, Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana will then be able to quickly give you background on who you’re about to sit down with, and have have their LinkedIn resumes on file. This, Nadella says, will increase user engagement, the company’s subscription business, and opens the door for targeted advertising.

It sounds both clever and creepy to think about your work projects and meetings being the subject of for ad targeting in the future. We can hope for an opt-out mechanisms that respect user and data privacy.

Knowing how employees spend their time and who they work with, could also help to inform LinkedIn’s recruiting products.

Microsoft says that LinkedIn Learning (based on LinkedIn’s acquisition of Lynda.com last year for $1.5 billion), will also be integrated into Office so users canlearn how to perform advanced tasks and sign up for courses without having to leave Office.

The Dynamics family has never really figured big at Microsoft -Bng for example added $5bn to the bottom line last year. Azure is the new engine of growth. Linked in may prove to be the strategic acquisition that brings Dynamics to the fore.

How much will Lined in’s profiling of a customer’s management team assist a sale in Dynamics CRM? LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator has the capability to create quality leads and present updated and accurate information to sales reps. With the acquisition, it is probable that Sales Navigator will directly integrate with Dynamics CRM and may eventually be built on Dynamics CRM. What if the records of contacts, accounts and leads in your Dynamics CRM are updated as the related profiles of those people and companies are changed? Think of all the time sales reps and administrators would save inputting and updating records or the wasted hours saved by not using wrong contact data. When a client got a new phone number, – it’s already reflected in the Dynamics CRM contact record. What if you could see the contact’s, or lead’s, recent activity on LinkedIn. What posts has he liked or shared? Has he published any LinkedIn pulse articles lately?

HR professionals may find a bigger role on the Dynamics 365 platform as the powerful recruiting tool of LinkedIn is integrated into the ERP solution. Both, human resources professionals and the projects and field service industries may benefit from LinkedIn’s to help them source and to manage temporary workers.

A recent report by Cisco said that by 2019, video will account for 80 percent of global internet traffic and this is where Microsoft’s 2011 acquisition of Skype may come to the fore. Experts predic that video is the future of recruitment, and with Whatsapp currently thought to be testing video messaging, video communication will become commonplace, even in the workplace. Hands on in the product interviews with WebEx, Go to Meeting, Team viewer etc and use webcams, or with videoconferencing are already well established, Will video meanl the end of face-to-face interviews>. Should you send a video message as your cover letter? It might differentiate you today, but if you’re not doing that in 24 months, then you’ may be left out.

Given the tie ups between Infor, Salesforce and SAGE on AWS – maybe Microsoft realises it needs to compete with the full suite of business apps to drive forward its cloud future.

Rather than pay the 35% corporate tax rate to repatriate offshore capital for the purchase, which would have amounted to approximately $9 billion, Microsoft fund4e the purchase using debt. In addition to the tax savings, Microsoft’s AAA credit rating no doubt facilitatee a low-interest loan %, which can be written off to further reduce the cost of funds. The LinkedIn acquisition is a marked departure from the strategy of ex-CEO Steve Ballmer, which deployed a series of Windows-only products in an attempt to build a moat around the f Windows franchise.

The LinkedIn purchase signals Microsoft’s intention to seize opportunities in areas with high growth potential. The deal is likely to drive significant benefits and an increasing revenue stream to the Azure cloud platform, which saw a decline in sales in Q1 2016.

The immediate significant benefit opportunity for Microsoft’s cloud initiatives is to migrate of LinkedIn’s operations, which are hosted as a private cloud across several leased data centers, to the Azure cloud service. LinkedIn need to expand its data center utilization, and Azure’s excess capacity provides a solution at a lower overall cost.

Integrating each company’s unique social graphing metrics of how users use the systems will benefit Azure , because the graphs have very little overlap. Microsoft graphs are generally Office-centric, including: calendar usage, email, contacts and documents. LinkedIn’s graphs, on the other hand, track communications, professional relationships, learning and recruiting. The combination of graphs provides the opportunity for Microsoft to present customized cloud-based productivity solutions based on a holistic view of users’ data.

In a world where the millenials are rapidly being chased by ‘generation z’ – social and media are the norm – maybe Microsoft really is ‘cool again. ‘ In this region with a high percentage of the population aged under 25, and one of the highest uses of mobile phones, a ‘Smart government’ focus, with apps for everything we are lily to see the results of such speculation very soon.