AX 2012 Reports Executing on your iPad

The release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 has brought a lot of great new possibilities to companies looking for the next generation ERP platform to empower their business. There is a lot of coverage for AX 2012, all over the web and blogsphere. More coverage than ever has existed for the Microsoft Dynamics product. I personally think this is a wonderful thing, because the more hands and more great minds that focus on AX, the better it becomes.

One of the neat things for this week, that a fellow peer Murray Fife, from Junction Solutions points out is how to execute and run your AX 2012 Reports right on your iPad! You can view his slideshare about this great find here.: Accessing Dynamics AX 2012 Reports On Your iPad

Murray actually posted this four months ago, and has a lot of other great AX 2012 related slideshares that I recommend you check out from the link above.

Basically the idea is that you use Sketch Reports app on your iPad and connect it to your reporting instance. Sketch Reports app is the older app now, and a updated new app from this same developer, which is recommend now over the Sketch app is Mobi Reports Pro. You can check out the app, from the app store page here.: Mobi Reports Pro Apple App Store Page.



From the App store page.:
"Mobi Reports Pro is an iPhone and iPad report viewer for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. It displays your reports from your reporting services folders and lets you navigate between them."

Many thanks for Murray for taking the time and sharing with the community, and I will be downloading the Mobi Reports Pro, myself, right after I get done writing this blog post.

That's all for now, check back soon as more to come. Till next time!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Rest in Peace - Steve Jobs

The world today lost a great man, and visionary. I would not be a true geek at heart, if I were to not pay my respects to Steve Job's passing with a simple blog post. His work has touched countless people, and truly has improved our lives with his passion.

I use several of his products everyday, and they help make my job, and life easier. He also believed in living life, and for all of that and for all that he did, he will be missed. A true loss in the world. Rest in peace Steve!

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Tech execs betting on enterprise mobility

Today ZDNet is reporting in a new article that more and more Tech Executives are betting on enterprise mobility for the upcoming year. The full article can be read here.: Tech execs betting on enterprise mobility; Apple's iOS, Android ride along

Looking at this article we see the following two graphs, with the first being (currently) supported mobile devices.:


And application planned adoption.:


What very intersting in this is what we see for offical support, based on the respondants to ZDnet. We still see Blackberry and Windows Mobile being the top two for Enterprise Apps, while Apple's iOS is listed third.

Moving foward looking at the applications that will be adopted, and based on the ZDNet article, we see that mobile LOB (Line Of Business) apps are targeted as the next big opportunity for the mobile enterprise.

Recently, I have posted about how a cusotmer can extend their Dynamics AX investment to the Apple iOS platform with the iPhone and iPad. This is still true, and also true for the Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms as well.

Dynamics ax on the iPad and iphone
More on Dynamics AX and the iPad

What I am seeing however, with more and more push of the Apple iOS platform into the enterprise is that Apple's iOS platform will become more and more offically supported by enterprise Technology Depts.

The article does not show what depts plan to offically support, but I would be willing to bet that the Apple iOS would be one of the top platforms, if that was one of the metrics of this report.

I agree with ZDnet in their article, that mobile LOB applications are the next thing for enterprise, and this goes well beyond email and contacts, as pointed out in the article itself.

Your talking more and more productive applications, that do more than offer consumption. That actually extend a customers enterprise investments, beyond their walls, into the cloud, and on into the mobile land scape.

With the Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Apple iOS and Andriod OS as choices, along with numerous ways to cloud enable or on-presise host integrations to mobile LOB applications to a customers backend investments, how does a company make the right choice for moving forward with this? For moving forward with mobile LOB application planning, development, build vs. buy vs. customize?

I think that with the cloud, and integration options, along with the four mentioned mobile / device platforms, it's easy to see that could be a mixed bag actually. And why not right? No need for a device vendor lock in.

If you take Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP platform, in how flexible and open it is. Then mix in Windows Azure, Google's AppEngine, or even on-premise services, then the device becomes a light or mid sized client, depending on the need of the LOB application.

A mid-sized companies, with today's options, does not have to have an IT staff that knows everything about all platforms. They also don't have to have a vendor lock in either.

Being flexible, and with a little research, IT depts' can remain open minded to the LOB application needs of their companies, and use that to drive the choice. So if you have a Dynamics AX ERP investment, and in turn have a hyrbid mix of services in the cloud and on-premise, Windows Mobile could be your phone and the Apple iPad could be the tablet / slate device. And both can work with these services that help create mobile LOB applications that extend your enterprises reach.

I hope this continues to help drive thought around not being locked in, but looking at the needs of the business, and the needs of the LOB apps, to drive how this will get done for your company. From there is could also be a mixed bag of inhouse development, VAR based development, and purchased third party mobile Apps that complete a total mobile LOB solution for a companies needs.

That's all for now on the topic, however check back soon as this will continue to be a hot topic for the remainder of the year and well into next year. I have some interesting things coming out soon actually just on the mobile enterprise LOB topic, including extending Dynamics AX!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

More on Dynamics AX and the iPad

Recently, I wrote an article about having Dynamics AX run on the iPad. This article can be found at the following link.: Dynamics ax on the iPad and iphone

That post, though very, very high level - got a lot of interest. I thought that there was for sure an interest level for the iPad in the enterprise markter. This confirmed, that even for Microsoft Dynamics AX, the iPad has a place.

In the first post, I covered some high level thought processes about the iPad, and the development of native applications for extending a customers Backend software investment, like Dynamics AX.

Now I wanted to Jump into another topic on how a customer can extend their Dynamics AX investment with an iPad.

What I am talking about is RDP. Remote Desktop. With the iPhone, it was hard to use Remote Desktop. The size alone it the main issue. However with the iPad, you have plently of space to work with.

So now what RDP ot VNC application to use? Well after doing some extensive looks, I found that Jump Desktop - RDP iPad App.



This is a very useful iPad app, and priced decent as well. I have personally used this to connect to a Widnows Server and run AX. The way that Jump Desktop does the mouse, and windows keyboard on the iPad is very easy to get use to and make use of.

The only issue is TS or RD Gateway support is not yet released. However I have talked with the developers personally and they are adding this support. Once that's there, I don't see why any other RDP will be needed on the market.

So with this, you get RDP access, nearly like you have when you RDP from a Windows Machine or Mac machine.

This is another way to extend AX, through the use of Remote Desktop. With the iPad's ability to connect to most VPN's, you now have a way to be productive from your iPad on your Dynamics AX investment.

Now if you still don't see the iPad's use and also interest from Companies in using the iPad with their enterprise software, then take a look at this latest article, which agrees with what I am saying about the iPad.: Apple's iPad, iPhone and an enterprise halo effect.

Enterprises are very interested, and they want to use the iPad. It's coming to businesses, and it's use will only continue to climb.

With all this talk of RDP, still for the most true use of the iPad, and as I stated in my first post, the true benefits of an iPad can best be realized with native applications.

This means having Objective-C based apps, built for the iPad, that connect to either on-premise services, or cloud based services for extending your enterprise software to the iPad.

There are all kinds of uses for the iPad in the Enterprise, and specifically relating to Microsoft Dynamics AX.

That's all for now. I have some very interesting interviews coming up soon. Look for those. Also look for the continued series of post on the iPad and Business desire for it's use with their ERP and other LOB investments!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Dynamics ax on the iPad and iphone

With the release of the apple iPad, the form factor that everyone loves about the iPhone has made it to a tablet device. The iPad is not the first tablet device, with Microsoft and others having tried before. However with me typing this blog post from my new iPad I can see why this is the form factor and is a success for the tablet device era.

I have actually switched most of my research, reading and the alike already to the iPad. One part could be because it's new and cool factor. However even as I type this the other is the natural side, of how it fits into the need of what I am trying to do. It's so easy, and unlike my MacBook pro I got that had the strange garlic smells, this apple product just works.

I have just got my replacement by the way, and no garlic smell whatsoever... And I am off downloading the xocde ide and ios sdk.

Now the biggest draw back I can see with the iPad is what it takes to have an enterprise developer license. Right now it takes a company of having the size of 500 employees plus a duns credit number. I actually got feedback on this from the apple developer support team and this is staying as is for now.

Still, with that said, a company can have the iPad for internal and external application use, even if it's just a 3 person shop.

How is this you ask? Well for one, let's take and say the company has a desire to connect with outside customers, vendors and employees. Let's say also the company would like to have their product catalog running on he iPad and iPhone in a native application. (html5 talks aside for now, as well as rdp, which both can be used for extended dynamics ax use to the iPhone and iPad.)

Let's also say this company has dynamics ax as their erp platform. Then they can have an app developed that targets both iPhone and iPad that helps brand their company in a native app fashion on the apple platform. This app can connect to dynamics ax through either wcf services hosted on premise with the company, or, hosted in the cloud through windows azure platform.

This means that the dynamics ax investment for any size company can be extended to the ios apple platform, with a targeted app, that would allow customers, vendors and employees to make use of for interacting with the company and with the companies dynamics ax investment.

I will leave this post now, and I hope I have you thinking about the possibilities. The iPad is a great platform that if targeted right can help your company extend and build upon it's dynamics ax investment, including the windows azure cloud platform.

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

MacBook Pro Woes

So I bought a MacBook Pro, with the latest Max OS X build. Yes, you just read that correctly, Mr. Microsoft guy here bought a MacBook Pro. The reason why, is so I can develop native applications for the iPhone / iPad platform with Xcode IDE and Objective-C. Lets face it everyone, Apple has the best form factor and platform for Phones and Tablet / Slate devices.

Because of this, I broke down, and bought my first MacBook every. I have made 95% of all my income in my 12 years of being a Software Professional on Microsoft technologies.

I was excited when it arrived today, and could not wait to get it booted. When I first got the box, I noticed a strange garlic smell. In further openning the shipping box, to reveal the white MacBook Pro box, the garlic smell was near overpowering.

This would end up setting the tone, or smell, for the rest of what would take place.

After getting past the smell, and realizing the MacBook itself had the new computer smell, I powered up. I was able to connect to my Wifi, get registered, and launch into my new MacBook desktop.

From there, I went directly to the reason I bought the MacBook Pro, which was sign up for the iPhone Developer program, so I could download and start to make use of the XCode IDE and iPhone SDK.

When browsing, I noticed at times the MacBook would freeze. Then pick back up, I thought 'ok' but continued on. About 70 megs out of 2.3 gigs my MacBook totally froze. Keep in mind I am a Microsoft Technologist mostly, and have never even touched a MacBook. So I went to my Windows 7 laptop and started looking up things. Finally, after playing around a little bit, I called Apple support.

This started out with the typical kind of support options, which I learned a lot about MacBook's today. I have leared how to boot up in Safe mode, how to load the Disk utility, how to launch the Activity Monitor, how to select a startup disk, and finally how to earse a hard drive and watch it fail in the earse process and remove the harddrive from the drive selection list.

In the middle of all of this I also installed Firefox, and learned all about how to do such a thing, which is very interesting compared to a Microsoft based PC. Nothing seemed to help though.

The funniest thing to me, or the most ironic, was about 20 mins into the support level I engineer call, he suggest a total reinstall of the Max OS X. Which to me, again, is just very ironic. All this start over, rebooting, etc. that was taking place. I could not help but laugh as I thought of those claims and commericals of how it just works. And I am a PC, well I am a Mac.

As I mentioned above, we did try to earse and was going to reinstall the Max OS X, in hopes that would fix this issue, but instead, the earse failed, and the HD totally disappeared. At this point I was working with a level II support engineer from Apple.

Finally after about 3.5 hours of total phone and support time, the level II Apple support engineer got the process started for a return and replace. I will add, the whole time, they were very professional and had good humor, as of course the sense of irony was all over me and in my tone. Even pointing out the "grey" screen of death we kept running into at times.

When the nice lady for the replacement got on the line, she had never done a DOA replacement before, which either is not true or does say something for their lack of need to do this kind of return. She was also very helpful, even though it was her first time at this.

Also, no one from the support team or herself ever heard of an elusive "garlic" smell, and I had someone comment 'might be someone's lunch they find when they open this MacBook up'.

In the end, I am waiting now for an email with instructions on what to do next for sending back my MacBook, so they can send me another one. I am still looking forward to developing iPhone and iPad applications with my MacBook, I just hope this time around it works. I also can't help but to smile a little, yes I paid over $1,600.00 for a new MacBook Pro, that on the first day, on arrival did not work.

Coming from a mostly Microsoft world, and writing this from my Windows 7 Laptop, which I am very happy with, just seems fitting. And actually, I had to open the support case up from my Windows 7 Laptop... which without my Windows 7 laptop, I don't know how I could have even started to resolve my MacBook woes!

So what does this have to do with Dynamics AX? Well this specific event, not much directly. I thought it was a good story. However, some of the work I will be doing on the iPhone and iPad is enabling native applications for those device to work with Dynamics AX and Microsoft Azure - Cloud Platform.

So in an in-direct way, and not at all how I would introduce this line of post, this does kick off my series on enabling iPhone and iPad, native applications, to work with Dynamics AX and Azure.

That's all for now, but check back soon, as more to come!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"