At Convergence 2011 in Atlanta on April 11th, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced the upcoming launch of the Dynamic ERP solutions in the cloud. Windows Azure Cloud platform is going to host Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP, NAV and SL ERP Solutions. According to Kirill Tatarinov, Vice President for Microsoft Business solutions said in this context that applications will support multi-latency.

At last Microsoft made its move towards the ERP market through a SaaS Cloud delivery. This is going to be a major shift for Microsoft and its entry into the Dynamic ERP Products market at SMB and mid-market segments.

Microsoft ignored for a long time a SaaS delivery for ERP and came up with a hosted delivery methodology known as “Software + services”. This approach allowed its channel partners to offer Dynamic ERP as an independent hosted versions to all their customers. Microsoft made it mandatory for a Service Provider License Agreement Program for this purpose.

Microsoft’s Dynamic CRM SaaS cloud delivery and Dynamic ERP products will be entirely different system. It will demand substantial engineering to attain multi-tenant SaaS delivery.

The successor of Dynamic NAV is planned as the first Dynamic ERP product for SaaS cloud delivery and scheduled for 2012. The Dynamic GP product is subjected to huge competition through Netsuite and already many of the existing customers are shifting to Netsuite for various reasons. Microsoft GP channel partners are trying their level best to retain the existing customer base through the currently available “Software + Services” hosted delivery. The GP 2010 is a latest release and just entered the market in May 2010 along with CRM. Microsoft scheduled the SL successor for 2011 and NAV is scheduled for 2012. This situation will make a GP cloud offering difficult until 2013.

Currently, SaaS ERP solutions market is ruled by some of the big players such as SAP, Business ByDesign, Netsuite, Plex and some more. Now, the Microsoft is making its entry into this market and determined to score.