The software company has opted for users and business leaders, not celebrities. So there's no Collin Powell or Jessica Alba, as we've seen with other events. Instead, there are people like Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal; Mark Sears, CEO of CloudFactory; and Matt Foreman, VP of Applied. Still, the evidence is the resellers have abandoned the conference, which is replacing Convergence, in droves. Microsoft did beef up the sponsor listing with IBM added to HP Enterprise at the Platinum level fairly recently. But with just over a month to ago, there are 36 sponsors, down from 58 at Convergence. There's a big fall off on VAR and VAR-related exhibits. Missing from last year so far as ArcherPoint, Armanino, BIO Analytics, Enavate, InterDyn BMI, RSM (known as McGladrey last year), Professional Advantage, Sikich and Western Computer. And somewhat telling is that the user groups—AXUG, CRMUG, GPUG and NAVUG—are missing this year.
ENVISION ADDING CONTENT Featured
Maybe Microsoft has seen the handwriting on the registration forms. But from the descriptions of the courses added to the new business conference to be held April 4 through April 6, there's a lot more Dynamics content being added. In particular, the company has added "The future of business solutions for SMBs: What's next for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Dynamics SL" led by Errol Schoenfish and Gordon Macdonald, to what had seemed likely to be largely a Dynamics AX fest. In fact, the content and speaker list looks good.
