From today (1st April 2019) Dynamics NAV has closed its doors. From now on all new customers will only be able to purchase Dynamics 365 Business Central. This marks the end of an era.
Dynamics NAV started its life as NAVISION a suite of accounting applications from a Danish company called Personal Computing and Consulting (later changing its name to NAVISION A/S). The first version of NAVISION was a client/server-based accounting application, launched in 1987 that allowed multiple users to access the system simultaneously which was fairly revolutionary at the time.
On the 11th July 2002 Microsoft bought NAVISION A/S. This was part of Microsoft’s strategy to develop business systems and followed a previous acquisition of Great Plains leading to Dynamics GP. NAVISION at this time also made AXAPTA that then went on to become Dynamics AX. In 2005 Microsoft launched Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Since then there has been many releases of Dynamics NAV with a whole range of updates to the solution as it grew over the last 14 years. Dynamics NAV has also been called many things in its long history; NAVISION, Navigator, Avista, Navision financials, Navision Attain and Microsoft Business Solutions – Navision edition.
Dynamics NAV was an extremely popular solution, it has been used by over 200,000 organisations with over 3 million users and has been sold in 196 companies. Part of Dynamics NAV success is attributed towards the flexibility of the product, it was a solution that you could customise to fit your organisation.
Dynamics NAV receives an upgrade
Don’t worry, Dynamics NAV lives on as Dynamics 365 Business Central. Business Central is based on the infrastructure of Dynamics NAV but is a next generation business application. Dynamics 365 Business Central has received a complete refresh, but you will recognise many of the underlying features and processes.
The biggest improvement is the move to the cloud and the visual interface. Like the rest of Dynamics 365, Business Central is a cloud first solution based on a subscription model. It receives regular updates and users are always on the latest version. The move to the cloud has also supported Business Central features such as the wide range of integrations available, powerful dashboards through Power BI and Artificial Intelligence. Business Central has a brand-new visual interface, which is extremely intuitive and a big improvement from Dynamics NAV which should drive better adoption.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is available with 3 deployment options:
- Cloud – This is the primary form the majority of users will experience Dynamics 365 Business Central. It offers full functionality and access to the new AI tools, it is much easier to integrate with other services and provides seamless updates to the platform from Microsoft.
- On-premise – This will be the most familiar to Dynamics NAV users, you can still have an on-premise instance of Dynamics 365 Business Central and users of Dynamics NAV can upgrade to Business Central to access the new interface, features and updates.
- Cloud sync (hybrid) – The hybrid approach is for organisations that aren’t quite ready to make the jump to cloud. It allows you to host an instance locally but your data syncs to an online instance of Business Central. You will have access to cloud only services such as AI and Power BI, you get the best of both worlds.
To learn more about Dynamics 365 Business Central please visit our Business Central page or download our Next steps for Dynamics NAV.