Every year Gartner publishes the magic quadrant of ERP players for the mid sector ie 100-1000 users. The Magic Quadrant segments players into four quadrants

• – Leaders: The players considered the best with both the vision and ability to execute. Typically these players have newer technology, the vision to invest in the product and take it in the right direction as well as the full breadth of features required.
• – Challengers: ERP Software vendors that often compete and have the ability to execute but not the vision. These players typically have older technologies and lack a unified vision but have a complete set of features as they have been in that market for some time.
• – Visionaries: Players that do not have the feature capability today but are investing in the product and have the vision to take it in the right direction.
• – Niche Players: Point solutions that may work for some segments but generally have very little investment behind them and also do not have a rich set of features.

Microsoft Dynamics AX is  in the leader quadrant for the second year in a row due to heavy investments by Microsoft into the product as well as newer technology that makes it more agile and flexible to adapt to a business. Gartner sees this (ERP) market as undergoing a major modernization, via established systems with deep functionality on older technology being  displaced by modern agile systems. Microsoft Dynamics AX definitely leverages thew hole Microsft technology stack to offer a scaleable system with deep and broad functionality, ease of use and ease of customisation. role centres and dashboaards, BI, Sharepoint Integration, Unified messaging, Workflow , integration with Project Server, Outlook, Excel, Word, specialized industry solutions – its a compelling offering.

Role Centerhome page for users  in Microsoft Dynamics AX

Gartner Magic Quadrant for ERP for Mid-Market companies with annual revenues between $50 million to $1 billion

According to Gartner, “Microsoft Dynamics AX is specifically targeted at midmarket organizations. It offers broad and robust functionality, and delivers low TCO through integration with other Microsoft products and technologies. Microsoft’s industry strategy for AX results in strong functionality, which is built by Microsoft’s internal resources or acquired from proven partners.” Gartner points to interesting key trends in this study.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and BPM prove their value in packaged applications for the midmarket: A combination of SOAs and BPM concepts allow for an unprecedented level of flexibility and adaptability.

• New user interfaces make ERP adoption and collaboration easier: Ease of use and rich user interfaces help users to find their way through the functionally comprehensive ERP packages. Built-in search capabilities help users to identify and locate the business objects that need their attention, and the role-based concept of roles helps them to select the appropriate action to take. Personalization lets users define the way that objects are presented and can be acted upon, and saves them from having to go through complicated screen sequences to complete a required business activity. This is especially important for users that only occasionally have to access an ERP solution. Built-in collaboration features help these users to easily get in touch with contacts inside or outside their own enterprises, which is extremely useful in midmarket companies that rely more heavily on the flexible, ad hoc cooperation of their workforce in areas with less well-defined business processes.
• The most commonly used technology for extracting and analyzing data in midmarket companies is Microsoft Excel:� 

  The following  criteria were used by Gartner to select qualifying software vendors. An ERP suite must fulfill all of these criteria to be included

• Geography: The vendor must serve at least two of the following three global regions (North America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa [EMEA]; and Asia/Pacific). The product must have a minimum of 20% of new customer entities in at least two of these three geographies.
• Installed base: The vendor must have at least 1,000 customers in a product’s installed base to qualify, and the installed base distribution must be at least 20% in two of the three geographies.
• New license sales: Of quarterly license revenue per product submitted, 10% must come from net-new customers. Also, two of the three geographies must contribute at least 20% of new license sales each.
• Viability: The offering must be a viable and supported offering at the time of publication of the Magic Quadrant.
• Application functionality: The functionality provided by the vendor in the application must contain the systems of records for G/L and product master, plus at least four of the following systems of record: order data, customer master, employee master, vendor and supplier master, purchasing, contracts, assets, pricing, cost, quality and planning.
• Architecture: The majority of an application must be in one architecture and data model (application platform), or the vendor must have a credible vision for accomplishing this.

Synergy is a Microsoft Dynamics Ax Gold Partner with industry specilist consultants  If you need  additional information on ERP selection then please contact us.

Microsoft Forecaster Integration will be available in late January 2011.

Feature Pack 1 for Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics AX will be available April 1, 2011 for the following countries :

 If your country isn’t listed, United States – English can be used.    The Service Pack Overview page can be found at the following link: https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/servicepacks/MROverview