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!"

AX and the iPad - Media coverage

In my AXUG summit re-cap post yesterday, I talked about the session I lead on "AX and the iPad". This session focused on the three area's of accessing Dynamics AX from the iPad.

• RDP via Jump RDP


• axPad Sales - Native App that connects with AX through SOA, developed by Sunrise


• HTML5 - Web based applications

The most coverage was around the axPad app itself, and what it can do. David Gumpert, Editoral Director was there for the presentation and did a great write up covering the session, and capturing the fact that people are using, planning to use and are wanting to us AX functions and data on the iPad.

Here is a direct link to the write up.: Here Comes the iPad for Microsoft Dynamics AX: More Microsoft Users Seeking Sales and Demo Applets

There are just two small clarifications I wanted to point out from this post.

1.) It's XCode IDE, not IDF. XCode is the IDE used on a MacBook for example, to develop in Objective-C and to work with the iOS simulators and Devices.

2.) When I stated it took me 80 hours, and now roughly could do the Same App functionality as the axPad Sales app offers in around 35 hours of work. Just clearing the fact that just like all development, it depends on the scope of work, for how long it would take. The point I was trying to make here, is that now I am passed a certain level in the iOS development learning curve, it would not take me as long to do create something like the axPad Sales app, as it did this first time around.

Other than those two clarifications, it's great coverage. I think MSDynamicsWorld.com coverage really catches the fact that Microsoft Customers of Dynamics AX are wanting the iPad. They are wanting to use the iPad, and more than just a consumption device.

I will have some detailed coverage of the axPad Sales soon, along with other great post. I would like to thank MSDynamicsWorld.com, for being at AXUG and giving all the sessions they attended great coverage!

Till next time!
"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Interview with John Pence on the AXUG Summit

Recently, I had the chance to virtually sit down with John Pence, President of Sunrise Technologes, Inc. (www.sunriseconsult.com) to talk about the upcoming AXUG summit.



The following is the result of that interview.:



1. John, with AXUG Summit 2010 just around the corner, what can of value does this conference bring to the Dynamics AX community?

"I think this is a big year for Dynamics AX and the user group. With the release of AX 6.0 due late next Spring AXUG Summit is a great chance to network with peers & Microsoft about their plans for the new release, what type of improvements have others seen in previous upgrades, and in general what’s working out there. I think the Town Hall session will be huge this year."

2. John looking at this from an attendee point of view, what are some sessions you are interested in and why?

"I always look forward to the Town Hall session. The interaction between a room full of knowledgeable Dynamics AX users, and the equally knowledgeable Microsoft executives, is always a great learning experience. In addition I am going to be attending as many of the BI sessions as I can. That is an area where many of the newer Microsoft technologies are converging and providing a lot of value to our AX clients."

3. Looking at this from a Partners point of view, what are some of the highlights and take aways you have from attending AXUG summits from years past?

"First and foremost, it provides an opportunity to network with our existing customer base. Every year we get great feedback on how things are going, what can be improved upon, and interesting best practice tips. Also important is networking with the Microsoft resources that are at the Summit."

4. Being a partner that will showcase this year during the AXUG summit, what will Sunirse be talking about?

"I am thrilled you brought this up. We are focusing on an important new technology, the iPad, and how it can compliment Dynamics AX in a really exciting way. I believe the iPad is an outstanding Mobile Application platform that is being adopted at light speed in the business world. Sunrise will be demoing how Dynamics AX can run on an iPad via a RDP connection, and a native iPad application directly interacting with a Dynamics AX instance."

John's closing statement.:

"I feel that every year AXUG Summit really delivers a tremendous value to its attendees. The networking opportunities with peers and Microsoft executives is always worth the price of the conference. The breakout sessions are almost always useful and based on real world experience, and the Town Hall session is not to be missed."



I would like to take the time to thank John for his thoughts. I know I am really looking forward to this years AXUG summit. I will be on-hand myself, and am scheduled to help with the above mentioned iPad demo, along with two other sessions on the Cloud.

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

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

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!"

Interview with DynamicsAnywhere Executives

Back at the start of this year, I did an interview with DynamicsAnywhere' - Joop van Voorthuijsen. In that interview, we talked about what Exactly DynamicsAnywhere was, what is offered, it's plans etc.

The full interview can be viewed here.: An interview with DynamicsAnywhere - Joop van Voorthuijsen

Now I have had another (virtual) sit down with Joop, to talk about the progress that has been made by DynamicsAnywhere, where things stand, how things are going, and the future.

The following is the result of that interview.:


Joop's LinkedIn Profile

1. Joop, Dynamics Anywhere seems to be in full swing since it's launch and are last interview. Can you give some highlights about recent developments for DynamicsAnywhere? How do these apply to customers and partners?

"The first half of 2010 has been used to put us ‘’on the radar’’ of the Microsoft Dynamics AX and NAV partners. We started by having a booth at Convergence Europe in November last year, Convergence US in April, Decisions in June and of course WPC 2010 in July. It has been going much faster than we could have imagined. Together with other activities like Newsletters and Live-meeting webinars, we generated contacts with over 100 partners and already more than 100 customers.

Our team has doubled in growth since October last year and we now have a full R&D team focusing on developing our frameworks and pre-configured apps for AX and NAV. Through the opening of our subs in the US covering North America and in Denmark covering the Nordic region we now have teams dedicated to EMEA, Nordics and North America. Our next goal is to establish a sub covering Asia Pacific so that we can service all continents. Although we focused the first half year mainly on partner recruitment, we also closed a number of deals and now have over 500 users ordered for our AX Anywhere solutions.

At this moment, more than 20 partners have been trained in our AX solution; their feedback and evaluations have been great. As an example, read the following statement from one of our trained partners about our AX solution : ''Excellent performance, sophistication and simplicity. The framework provides easy-to-use functionality, while taking care of very complicated functions''

Also in the last months we have enhanced our solution to support more browsers. Since June we support also Safari and Firefox besides of course Internet Explorer. Many Dynamics customers are having devices with the Safari and Firefox browser. From now on we can also deploy on devices like iPhone and iPad!

Bjarne Schøn (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland), Mike Wijas (USA and Canada) and Eddy van de Lagemaat (All other countries) are mainly responsible for recruitment of new partners and partner account management. and Bjarne Schøn has been in charge of Dynamics Mobile at Microsoft"

2. What has been some of the biggest challanges that DynamicsAnywhere has faced in getting traction for taking off, and how did DynamicsAnywhere overcome those challanges?

"For ISV’s, one of the biggest challenges is building a channel. We have overcome this challenge by hiring experienced people like Eddy van de Lagemaat who used to be Partner Account Manager at Microsoft in the Netherlands for many years. Together with my background as co-founder and former CEO of To-Increase, we have a great network within the Dynamics community. This helped us a lot in building our channel."

3. It's been publicly released that Bjarne Schon, formely a Microsoft employee and responsible for Microsoft Dynamics Mobile joined DynamicsAnywhere. Can you tell us a little bit about what Bjarne has brought to DynamicsAnywhere so far, and what you expect is role and leadership will do for DynamicsAnywhere in the future?

"We are very happy having Bjarne in our team. He has a lot of expertise in the mobility area (R&D, Go-To-Market, Channel, etc), and a great network both within Microsoft and the Dynamics Channel. These things will help a lot in getting extra traction. It is also a great confirmation of our strategy that Bjarne decided to join Dynamics Anywhere."

4. From an implementation point of view, can you give us some insight into current or recently deployed DynamicsAnywhere solutions for Microsoft Dynamics AX? Can you tell us about the partner and customer experience in these referenced implementations?

"Over the past months, we have sold our solutions to more than 10 customers. From these customers, about 50% are already live with our software. An average implementation takes 5 to 10 days. The fact that our solutions are written in Microsoft Dynamics AX and NAV makes it a super easy for both partners and customers to implement the solution.

We have developed something we call an “ROI Calculator” – This tool partners enable partners to work with their customers to assess the benefits they will get from implementing our mobile solutions and so far our assessments show that customers typically get an ROI after 6-9 months which is extremely short in the IT-industry!"

5. In regard to Microsoft Dynamics AX 6.0, current due '2011', what to you feel will change in the base, that will alter DynamicsAnywhere solution? Will it allow DynamicsAnywhere to be more flexible and offer more functionality?

"The way we have developed our Framework makes it easy to migrate to new releases of Dynamics AX. As the Framework does not depend much on AX functionality, we will have our new Framework soon available after Microsoft Dynamics AX 6.0 is launched."

6. Tell us a little bit about DynamicsAnywhere plans as a company? Will you be expanding to an office in the U.S., or other parts of the world? Do you plan on targeting the APAC region?

"For an ISV, building a channel is one of the most important investments. Based on my experience as co-founder and CEO of To-Increase, we have developed a strategy where we go worldwide as quickly as possible. We already opened offices in the US (Chicago) covering North America and Denmark, because I believe in local presence to get the business going.

The Danish office covers the Nordic region and is led by Bjarne Schon, formerly responsible for Dynamics Mobile in Microsoft. At this moment we have a lot of interest from the APAC area also. We plan to open an office in APAC beginning 2011. In this way, we have coverage in the world’s biggest and most important areas. "

I also asked Joop and Bjarne to give closing statements, below are those statement.:
Joop:
"’Looking at the most recent reports from Gartner, IDC and AMR we see Mobility becoming more and more important to companies and consumers. It is the fastest growing topic on the top-10 list of IT directors. We also see many partners using our mobile solutions as a differentiator to position themselves better for both existing but also new customers.

Many competitors don’t have an integrated solution. So, for our Microsoft Dynamics partners we offer a great opportunity to strengthen their offering to their existing and new customers!

Let me leave you with these 3 quick facts that can make your “head spin”:

a) By 2013 more than 1/3 (1.2 Billion) of the global workforce will be so-called “mobile workers” – i.e. spending a significant amount of time away from their desk!

b) Today on average only 15% of the employees in a company use the ERP system. The remaining 85% are often found in Manufacturing, Warehousing, Sales, Service and Distribution!

c) In December 2010 there will be more than 5.1 Billion mobile devices in use on a global scale – more than ANY other technology or solution EVER in history!

Now imagine the benefits and opportunities companies will get when their mobile workforce starts to connect their mobile devices to the ERP-system and begins reporting in real-time from the shop floor, the dock-door, at customers and on the road!

The technology is mature, our solutions are here and the need is there!"

Bjarne:
"’Looking back at almost 9 fantastic years at Microsoft’s R&D center in Copenhagen where I had the privilege of starting up Dynamics Mobile and 4 other business areas (2 funded directly by Steve Ballmer) I realize that somewhere on the way I got stung by the “Mobile Bee”.

I find everything that has to do with mobility and mobile solutions super interesting and inspiring – the tremendous impact mobility will have on people, processes and companies has only just started and it is only the imagination that will set the limits to what it can be used for.

When I met Joop for the first time 8 years ago I was deeply inspired by his entrepreneurship and business acumen. Now 8 years later being asked to work with him and the great team at Dynamics Anywhere to build a company in the area that I am so passionate about was a fantastic opportunity. Topping it off with the fact that I would remain connected to Microsoft, working with the AX & NAV product lines and the Dynamics channel was a dream come true. The opportunities with mobile solutions are growing every day – I think the “3 quick facts that can make your head spin” above are a good testament of exactly that."

I would like to thank DynamicsAnywhere, Joop and Bjarne for taking the time to virtuall sit down and complete this interview.

I think what DynamicsAnywhere brings, is exactly what Microsoft wanted the partner community to bring, when they canceled the Mobile Dynamics Solutions.

DynamicsAnywhere enables web based publihsed interactions, that can be consumed on most any mobile device, and wokr directly with AX data and business logic. I am very excited about the work they are doing, and look forward to hearing more and more from them in the future.

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

"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!"