My first job with Dynamics GP was actually as a customer. At the time I was the Controller for a small start up in Philadelphia and we were growing and needed an accounting system. Through the recommendation of our
accounting firm, we purchased and implemented Great Plains Accounting (this was when it was still on DOS).
David Musgrave
– David’s blog and newsgroup posts are a phenomenal source of knowledge for me. Mostly David contributes to my technical understanding of GP.
Mark Polino
– one of the first (or maybe the very first?) GP bloggers. Mark offers more setup/usability information and is also a great source of other sources of information about GP. He is constantly monitoring all the GP news and writing about the interesting and worthwhile topics he finds.
Patrick Roth
–Patrick is a frequent newsgroup poster and I have learned a great deal of the inner workings of GP as well as the GP development team from him. Patrick also
contributes to David Musgrave’s blog.
Mariano Gomez – blogger and frequent newsgroup poster, Mariano is not afraid to attack just about any question posted on any newsgroup and that has been inspirational to me.
What is your biggest achievement/s in Microsoft Dynamics?
So hard to choose just one….I guess this would be the honor of being the only person who has been named a Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP each consecutive year starting with 2005, when Microsoft started recognizing Dynamics GP
MVPs.
What is the best thing Microsoft has brought to the community?
All the different forums/newsgroups that are available for end users and consultants to ask questions and share knowledge. 5 years ago there was nothing like this for GP and really nowhere for users to turn with questions or issues.
Why should an end user purchase Microsoft Dynamics?
Since my area of expertise is Dynamics GP, I can only speak to that –GP is a great product! I have seen companies double their volume with very slight increases in staff by implementing GP.
What are the biggest challenges facing Microsoft Dynamics?
There is a growing feeling in the community that Microsoft is not adding as many new features to GP as they should be, instead focusing more efforts on changing the look and feel of the application to more closely resemble other Microsoft products. Even though Microsoft has owned GP for a long time, it is still very different from most Microsoft products. Many would argue that GP does not follow Microsoft’s own best practices. While Microsoft has been addressing this incrementally with every new release, it is something that is difficult to overcome in some situations.
What would you want to see from Microsoft Dynamics in the future?
Quicker support/integration for other Microsoft technologies, support for more virtual platforms. In general, more of the functionality that users and consultants have been asking for. I think we are definitely moving in the right direction, we just need to keep doing it.
