The Dynamics Mash-up

The straight jacket that the Dynamics licence placed on the ability to use and disseminate data that was held in the products has been the subject of some of my earlier rants (HERE and HERE ).

Yesterday Microsoft announced at Convergence the Microsoft Dynamics Client for Office and Sharepoint. Press Release

Having read the press release this is almost certainly what was needed. It seems that the licence will allow users to access data from the ERP system and interact with it without the need for a full CAL.

There are going to be two versions of the licence and it seems that the difference is based on how much interaction there is with Sharepoint. The basic $195 licence allows users to use Windows Sharepoint Services (The free one) and the $395 licence allows the use of Office Sharepoint 2007. The press release indicates that the higher CAL includes a CAL for Moss “…as well as a license for the recently released Office Sharepoint Server 2007″. This makes it exceptional value for money.

What is a bit vague is just what does the licence extend to. Does one licence cover all the Dynamics products so if the client has CRM and NAV do they get access to both for one CAL?

Finally we are in the position to build solutions that don’t come with a stupidly high CAL cost.

We now have the mash-up for Dynamics licence.