As a freelancer it is very unusual to be put in the position that I found myself in this week. I have been asked by a client, that I first worked with in 2002 when I was part of the team that implemented AX3 for them, to assist in the getting the best deal for them from Microsoft for their new licenses. In an attempt to save costs and I suspect in a belief that they know more about their business than any consultancy that this will give them greater control.

 

This has led me into having to relearn some skills that, previously, as a functional consultant inside a VAR, I was never that comfortable with, as well as having the very uncomfortable situation of having to disengage the client from its VAR who is also my previous permanent employer, who I have always maintained a good relationship with.

 

I have been used as a trusted advisor in the past by the client as a freelancer to act as policeman in how the various elements of the previous upgrades have been staged and it has until now been a good working partnership for all three elements, the client, the VAR and myself.

 

However a priority has swept in for the client and it appears that cost saving in the short term is of paramount importance. I had argued in which case not upgrading to AX2009 and waiting until AX6 is available would save more money but the decision had been taken on the advice of the VAR to move to AX2009 instead of AX6 without any service pack as the delivery of a service pack will not occur until late 2010 or early 2011.

 

But to me it does seem odd to take the advice of a VAR you have worked with for 8 years but not to use them to implement that advice. On the face of it though saving the end client should be a simple thing for the VAR to achieve.

 

Through CustomerSource it is possible to ascertain how many Full Access User Licenses are required and how many Partial Access User Licenses are needed, it is also possible to even work out which modules and what else will be attached, and indeed the price the total value of the licensing deal which, as usual, is cheaper than that offered by the VAR. This then led to the part of the work that I had not looked forward to, the negotiations with Microsoft, given that one of the many great things about Microsoft Dynamics is the 'through Partner Model' it came as no surprise that Microsoft suggested that a resolution with the VAR was the best route, but if this was not a possibility then Microsoft would offer to find a new VAR with which to work, or the client could look at the possibility of becoming their own VAR.

 

I am not sure how, but within hours there three other VARs had contacted the client offering to help them with the upgrade. There have been many odd facets to the last 6 weeks and the backwards and forwards nature of negotiations with Microsoft if you do not have the VAR relationship with them is too time consuming to be sensible.

 

As a freelancer it is possible to act as a trusted advisor and it can even benefit the implementation if it does work correctly, but it can only work if all the parties involved respect each other and work together to produce what is needed to achieve a successful implementation and I do include Microsoft in this. It appears crazy that licensing costs on CustomerSource seem to always be different to those presented by a VAR. Clients also need to respect the work that the VARs put in, but maybe most of all VARs should not become complacent of their relationship it may not be commonplace to lose clients who try to do it themselves, but it is not unusual to lose them to another VAR.

 

I am not in favour of a VAR sniping on the clients of another VAR as 'what goes around comes around' and it must be better for the future of Microsoft Dynamics for VARs to put more effort into winning clients from SAP and Oracle than hunting existing Microsoft Dynamics clients other VARs?