Microsoft Dynamics NAV Roadmaps: A Look Back (And Ahead)

With the recent release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015, I was curious to look back on Microsoft’s plans for the product and see if major additions such as Social Listening were ever included in the old plans.

A little research has yielded some interesting results.  It’s amazing to see how trends and new developments have influenced the outlook for Microsoft Dynamics NAV!

2005

This doesn’t tell us too much, but it looks like Dynamics NAV “7.0” was scheduled for 2009 – 2010. Source.

2006

The best I can tell, this slide came out just before the Dynamics NAV 5.0 launch in late 2006. (Pardon the French). Source.  Here is a translation:

2005-2007

• Role Management
• Portals and workflows based on SharePoint
• Business Intelligence (And it remains a priority 10 years later!)
• Web Services

2008+

• Modular process management
• Improved Visual Studio, .NET tools
• UI improvements
• Process library

It’s cool too see so many definitive NAV features coming out of the woodwork!

2007

This roadmap contains two big hints for the future of Dynamics NAV – 1) The first peek at Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, and 2) an indication of just how transformative Dynamics NAV “7” would be, now scheduled for around 2011. Source.

2008

This roadmap came out sometime around 2008, and continues to show the much anticipated 2010-2011 release as NAV “7”.  Source.

2011

NAV “7” Got bumped to 2012. (Spoiler alert: it is now known as Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013.)   It also looks like NAV “8” will become Dynamics NAV 2013 R2, and NAV “9” will become Dynamics NAV 2015.  I like seeing plans to deploy Dynamics NAV in the cloud. Source.

2014

This roadmap shows (retroactively) the major improvements that have been put out since 2010.  It’s interesting to observe the differences between what’s here and what was scheduled earlier.  Source.

It’s neat to see common themes throughout Dynamics NAV’s development, such as Office Integration, Business Intelligence, Quick Implementation, and Ease of Use. Also, it seems as if my search for Social Listening is going to have to come up fruitless (in previous roadmaps at least, it’s very much part of NAV 2015!)  Regardless of what Microsoft had planned for Dynamics NAV way back in 2005, they’ve hit the nail on the head a decade later with an extremely flexible solution for unique businesses.  Today, Dynamics NAV is the largest mid-market ERP solution in the world!