Microsoft to combine MBS applications in one code base

This article was posted on Computer World. It outlines plans for "Project Green" where it is to combine its major business applications -- Axapta, Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Microsoft CRM. The plan is to ship the applications in two waves with the first wave shipping this year.

The task of aligning Microsoft's collection of business applications around a common technology stack will happen in two distinct stages, Microsoft Senior Vice President Doug Burgum said Monday in a keynote address opening the company's Convergence conference, in San Diego.

A "first wave" of applications will begin shipping this year, while a "second wave" is scheduled to commence in 2008, leading to a converged code base, Burgum said.

Burgum heads Microsoft Business Solutions, the unit Microsoft created several years ago by combining its own back-office application development projects with two acquired companies, Great Plains and Navision. The move gave Microsoft a substantial portfolio of midmarket ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) products, but also left it with overlapping software suites built around different architectures.

Microsoft announced plans to combine its major business applications -- Axapta, Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Microsoft CRM -- on one code base, dubbed "Project Green." The company initially put Project Green on an ambitious development path and forecast deliverables as early as 2004, but in the past year Microsoft has extended its development window and scaled back expectations.

The full article is available here.