But Wait, There's More

Microsoft Adds Employee Portal to ERP with Navision 4.0 SP1

Microsoft this week announced it is very close to shipping Service Pack 1 for Navision 4.0, which includes the new Navision Employee Portal. The new portal in Navision 4.0 SP1 is based on Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server, and is expected to improve users' ability to collaborate. In addition to the portal, SP1 brings improvements in the area of inventory costing enhancements, planning resiliency, new SQL properties for running Navision on SQL Server, and new libraries to enable developers to extend the Navision database through external applications build using .NET languages. Microsoft, which claims to have 48,000 Navision customers (a number that surely represents the total of named Navision users, and not individual companies and other organizations that have purchased Navision licenses), recently announced plans to rename Navision in 2006 or 2007 as Dynamics NAV as part of its plan to unite its disparate ERP lines (see "Microsoft Makes its Mid Size Business Move"). Navision 4.0 Service Pack 1 will be released on a tiered schedule beginning this month.

Sage Unveils Version 4.1 of MAS 90 and 200 Windows-Based ERP

Sage Software this week launched new releases of its popular midmarket ERP software for manufacturers and distributors, Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 ERP. The new version 4.1 releases of these products include improvements in the sales order entry and job cost modules, as well as new business intelligence features and overall ease-of-use enhancements, the Irvine, California, company, says. New integration between sales order and job cost features will give users greater flexibility in allocating and invoicing for goods and services, the company says, while the new "dual grid" interface on the sales order entry module will "dramatically improve" data entry throughput. The company has also upgraded the four key modules of the two products--Accounts Receivable, Sales Order, Return Merchandise Authorization, and Bank Reconciliation--to the company's new Sage MAS 90 and 200 Business Framework, which it says will streamline workflow and increase productivity. Reports from these four modules are now presented through the included Crystal Reports viewer, and these modules will also be supported with the Memo Manager, which enables users to attach important customer information to appropriate records. MAS 200 ERP offers all the functionality of Sage MAS 90 ERP, but is designed to support more transactions and users, and therefore requires a more robust architecture, including a SQL Server database. Both are designed for Windows and will be available within 30 days.

Microsoft to Bolster Speech Server with Acquisition of Unveil Technologies

Microsoft buoyed its Windows Speech Server product line this week with the acquisition of Unveil Technologies, a developer of call center technology and the Unveil Conversation Suite. Microsoft says it plans to incorporate the Adaptive Learning and Conversation Assist components of the Unveil Conversation Suite into future versions of Speech Server. Rich Bray, general manager of the Speech Server group at Microsoft, says Unveil's technology is a "natural fit" with Speech Server. "By supplementing our toolset with Conversation Suite technologies, even a non-technical call center manager can prototype and develop robust speech applications," Bray says. Unveil is a privately held company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Microsoft says it plans to offer jobs to "key" Unveil employees, and will give Unveil's existing customers the "opportunity to participate in future programs that include the acquired technology."

Two New Microsoft Bundles Available to Small Businesses in the U.S.

Small American businesses looking to upgrade their computer systems may be candidates for two new promotional software bundles Microsoft announced this week. The first promotion, called the Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Small Business Server 2003 IT Services Promotion, makes organizations that purchased either a Windows Small Business Server 2003 license, or at least five Microsoft Office 2003 licenses, through Microsoft's Open Value program, eligible to receive a Microsoft "subsidy" (which is a check from Microsoft written out to the IT consultant of their choice) for $100. Customers who bought both can get a check for $125. The second promotion, called the Small Business Platform SKU, gives companies about 25 percent off the cost of a bundle of software that includes Office 2003 Small Business Edition, a Small Business Server 2003 Client Access License, an upgrade to Windows XP Pro, and up to three years of Software Assurance support. Microsoft says this offering has an estimated retail value of $922 per PC, which it estimates equating to an overall 28 percent discount on the cost of purchasing these products separately through the Open Value license program. Microsoft says this program makes it easier for small businesses to manage their licenses, and will also provides customers with free upgrades to Windows Vista and Office 12 when those products are released.

Adoption of XBRL Streamlines Financial Reporting, Microsoft Accounting Chief Says

In addition to developing technology for others to use, Microsoft is well-known for actively incorporating new technology into its own business processes. Often, this means being a beta shop for new releases of Windows and Windows Server products, a process Microsoft deliciously refers to as "eating your own dog food." In addition to opening a fresh can of Alpo, this also means adopting open-standards, such as Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), an XML variant designed to reduce the time and expense that public companies spend creating and submitting financial reports to government regulators. This week Microsoft announced that it's the first company to submit its annual 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the XBRL format. It also began submitting its quarterly 10-Q reports in XBRL earlier this year, when the SEC began accepting filings in the new format. According to Scott Di Valerio, Microsoft's chief accounting officer, XBRL will save Microsoft--and any other company adopting it--lots of time and effort. "Large companies invest endless staff hours and other resources analyzing and reporting their financial statements. In fact, preparing for quarterly statements commonly consumes a majority of the finance staff's time at publicly traded companies in the weeks prior to quarterly statements," he says in a Microsoft PressPass interview posted to the Microsoft Web site. "XBRL works much like a system of standardized barcodes for financial and business reporting. It allows computers to automatically track and roll up information used to manage and communicate a company's performance."

AutoMate Job Scheduling Tool Automates Terminal Applications

New terminal application job scheduling capabilities have been added to the Windows-oriented AutoMate suite of tools from Network Automation (formerly Unisyn Software), the company announced yesterday. With AutoMate version 6.0.5, the Los Angeles company added the capability to automate terminal-based systems through the Enterprise Terminal Actions feature, which provides support for zSeries and iSeries servers through the TN3270 and TN5250 emulation protocols. AutoMate is primarily used to automate the management of Windows applications, including Web servers, FTP servers, SQL Server database transactions, and batch data processing, as well as taking some of the grunt work out of regression testing. The software is programmed using "plain-English" sentences, which the company says makes it easy to use the product's library of 160 actions. Other new features introduced with this release include the capability to use SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL databases as an external logging databases. AutoMate Professional costs $795, while AutoMate Enterprise (required for 5250 and 3270 application support) costs $2,495