Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta, Microsoft CRM require existing customer to be on active service contract: enhancement program. Minimal maintenance plan gives you free new software version (however upgrade itself, if it is done by your MBS partner is not free). If you are outside of USA/Canada: Mexico, South America, UK, South Africa, France, Australia, New Zealand – you may have different promotion campaigns and might be not required to be on the service contract. In this article we assume that you are US/Canadian client.

• Can I get new licenses without being on the service contract? The answer is no – we tried to negotiate with MBS on behalf of midsize and large corporate clients, who are so-called orphans, or without support/service plan. Please, understand the rules of ERP application support. It is normal practice when large business ERP requires service plan. Microsoft Business Solutions in turn requires its MBS partners to pass multiple certification and quality assurance (QA) tests

• What is re-enrollment fee? Currently reenrollment fee is 35% of the software price list. From time to time you may catch re-enrollment promotion campaigns, the minimum known was 20% (September/October 2004). If you are on version eEnterprise 6.0 and skipped 4 annual payments (16%) and now in order to upgrade to Great Plains Professional 8.0 you pay 35% (which includes 16% enhancement plan for the next year), then your penalty is just 19% - I’d say go ahead and reenroll.

• Great Plains Standard vs. Professional. Great Plains Standard (or former Great Plains Dynamics) has certain limitations: number of users is capped at 10 and number of employees (US Payroll) is capped at 500. Great Plains Standard is available on MSDE and MS SQL Server

• New Modules Addition. The same rule applies – you have to be on enhancement program to get additional modules. So, if you need say Fixed Assets module and if you are without support – you need to reenroll in order to get FA module reg key.

• Customization Upgrade. If you need Great Plains Dexterity, Modifier/VBA, Continuum, eConnect. SQL Stored procs customization upgrade, you need to find MBS customization partner. As your customization was done by somebody else in the past (who probably is out of business now), we or the partner you select can not guarantee the upgradeability of your custom piece – we’ll try our best.

• Reports Upgrade. Good news – if you have Crystal Reports, working with Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise 6.0 – then upgrade should be simple, because table structure didn’t change – only minor changes were introduced.

• Switching to Great Plains. If you are considering Great Plains to be your ERP, we know successful implementations, customizations in the following industries: aerospace & defense, textile, non-profit, services, recruitment & placement, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, hospital & healthcare, transportations, distributions, logistics & supply chain management, education, government, beverages, jewelry, gold & mining.

Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia