Simplified Licensing

Continuing the theme of value for money Microsoft recently (September 2006) streamlined the pricing for Dynamics GP - Business Ready Licensing (BRL) - by bundling most of the huge functionality available, into 2 types of user based pricing: Business Essentials and Advanced Management. Thus, Advanced Management, which is less than $4,000 per user, now includes a huge range of ERP functionality without any additional module cost. Even Business Essentials at less than $2,400 per user includes most core requirements, such as Supply Chain Management and Project Accounting.

Dynamics CRM also had its licensing simplified when version 3.0 was released. Similar to BRL, users get all of the available capability including Marketing, Sales and Service. There are 2 versions: Small Business Server Edition or Professional Edition. The SBS edition costs less than $800 per named user and the Professional Edition is less than $1600 per user. As the name suggests the SBS edition must be installed in a Small Business Server environment, although it may be installed on a separate SQL Server within an SBS controlled domain. Small Business Servers may not be joined with existing domains and are limited to a maximum of 75 users.