Blogging on AX – Where have I been?

Time is my enemy I am afraid. Time to spend with my family, time to learn, time to implement, time to work and time to think. I do not have enough time!

I have been here the whole time, contributing on forums as has always been my way, but even there my contributions have reduced from previous years. There are many more capable people willing to help and the pressure to be one of the few functional people helping the community has been reduced.

I am pleased the AX world is growing and pleased there are more hands to help. I started this blog because I felt the need to write and publish, but it soon became apparent I would struggle to write on my current projects and events without the customer knowing it was them. One impact on my blogging is the speed of change. It became apparent that keeping close to the forefront of the moving world of AX whilst full-time servicing the projects I was assigned by my employer would become a contradictory position I still continue to struggle with. Again time is my enemy.

The projects can be big and slow, I had an AX2009 relatively small customer take five years to go live (they are very happy) whilst the product is changing. Businesses want 9 months from sign to go-live with a complete assessment of to-be processes and of course a commitment to no customizations which quickly disappears. Customers though have always been demanding!

This blog started with the Technical Conference in 2014 which was the release of R3 on AX2012 and the entry of AX into the world of Retail. I returned to Seattle in 2016 (Missing an opportunity to add to my blog!) where the focus was on Azure, the Cloud, LCS and AX7. Already we have had Madeira come into the landscape and will form part of the Dynamics365 strategy you will hear more about in the coming weeks and the adoption of AX into the “Operations” solution.

Today we have AX7, I make no apologies for calling it that, it is easier than the reference to the “New Microsoft Dynamics AX”. This is a Cloud based version that has a seemingly slow uptake as many customers are avoiding the technology they don’t trust and are implementing AX2012. This is a difficult proposition to sell – going live in 2017 on the cutting edge software of AX2012! However, calling AX2012 “AX2012” is not really fair – R3 was a release in itself and Microsoft should consider a re-branding here, but they rarely look back.

I however have looked back, and looked at how little I have added here in the past two years, well nothing, my apologies, but you remember that bit about time being my enemy? This will not change and I dont know what I can write about and seem relevant whilst not offending customers or breaking any NDA’S! I still have my LSA notes and perhaps I will finish that post. I cannot make any promises though!