Microsoft Shows Small Business Software
Microsoft is building on its 2002 buy of Danish business application developer Navision A/S with the release this week of its first major product built on the Navision software suite.
Source: PC WorldDubbed Microsoft Navision 4.0, the software is aimed at strengthening the Redmond, Washington, company's position in the business application market targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Microsoft has been trying to carve a niche in the category over the past few years, investing $2.4 billion to enter the market with its buy of Navision and U.S. midmarket business application provider Great Plains Software. The Navision 4.0 release includes financial, manufacturing, customer management, supply chain, analytics, and e-commerce data tools and offers users a new interface modeled after Microsoft's Office Outlook 2003. The main change in the suite is its tighter integration with Microsoft's technology stack. "To a large extent integration with Microsoft is what the release of 4.0 is about," says Jen Silleman, business manager for Microsoft Business Solutions Navision. For example, Excel is used as a viewer for the business analytics graphing tools, Silleman says, and new notification services are built on Microsoft's SQL Server. The update is also aimed at connecting partners and customers, offering an XML (Extensible Markup Language) port so customers can customize the software for document exchange.
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