Navision Continues ERP Push

Navision Microsoft

In November, the company plans to ship Attain 3.6, its low-end ERP solution, in the United States. The solution adds deeper Outlook integration, advanced search, and full change log as well as SmartTag support, said Todd Bergeson, Attain product manager at Navision, based here.

Users will also be able to export data in a simulated OLAP cube to Excel for analysis views. "You will be able to use the pivot table of Excel and work offline with the data," Bergeson said.

Navision's higher-end Axapta will also be updated in the fall, with new enterprise portal capabilities, he said. Axapta competes with offerings from J.D. Edwards and sometimes Epicor, SAP and Oracle, Bergeson noted. Attain's most direct rivals are Great Plains' eEnterprise and Dynamics applications, he said. That poses an interesting problem since Microsoft bought Great Plains last year for $1 billion and is now in the process of buying Navision, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, for $1.3 billion.

Bergeson said Attain is geared for smaller companies that don't necessarily have a lot of IT resources, and for whom the reseller often acts as IT department. Vertical market versions are available for process manufacturing, equipment rental and not-for-profit organizations, he said. Attain is flexible and customizable, he said, and Axapta supports multiple server processes for larger companies.

Navision appears to be jockeying for position now vis-a-vis Great Plains. "Attain has 260,000 lines of code, Axapta has 900 lines, and Great Plains eEnterprise has 22 million lines," Bergeson said. Both Navision offerings are built using their own languages. Attain supports both its own proprietary database and SQL Server. Axapta supports Oracle and SQL Server databases.

Another potential internal conflict at Microsoft should the deal close as planned is with MS-CRM, Microsoft's home-grown CRM application, due to ship late this year. Asked how Attain will fit in with that offering, Bergeson said: "I wish I had a good answer for that."

Earlier this month, Don Nelson, general manager of North American Channels for Microsoft's Great Plains Business Solutions group, acknowledged the quandary. "All [Attain, Solomon, Great Plains customers will have a path to .Net-based solutions but in the interim we will be somewhat challenged by overlapping product lines," he said.

Navision is making strides in its channel efforts. The company said its U.S. reseller base grew 25 percent in the past year, for a total of 255 resellers (36 new to Attain, and 15 new to Axapta). Of that total, probably 30 are also Great Plains resellers, said a company spokeswoman.