This description from the company websites seems to sum up the target audience: " We're creating an entirely new opportunity where leaders can discover the strategies and solutions that can help them, their teams and their business achieve more." VARs I have connected with are generally not attending or cutting back significantly. The timing of the announcement for a show to be held April 4 through 6 was a bit abrupt for many. "I talked to someone at MS Microsoft GP team last week; she is as peeved as we are," says one reseller. Another said: "We have typically had 10 to 15 team members go and this year we are limiting to 3 or maybe 4 tops. If other partners and customers follow that same or similar pattern, it will be a very small conference." The show will probably appeal to dealers specializing in Dynamics AX, such as Atlanta, Ga.-area VAR I.B.I.S. "I believe that the show could be very good for us," says I.B.I.S. CEO Andy Vabulas. "The Dynamics customer deep dives have been moved to the User Groups and Ignite. This is more of an all up Microsoft Business leader forum. I like it." There are worries that clients, used to attending, will still want to go. One observer says that "Concerned clients will still sign up and attend and be terribly disappointed it is not the same as year's past. And they will be blaming MS and indirectly the partners for not letting them know more in advance."
MICROSOFT CHUCKS CONVERGENCE Featured
Good-bye, Convergence; hello, Envision. And this week, after a bunch of people have probably already set plans for attending the Dynamics Convergence conference in New Orleans, La., Microsoft announced it will be holding a more general business show called Envision. Microsoft had said last year it would change the Convergence format and there had already been talk among ISVs that they would stop attending or significantly cut back on booth space. That will probably go for much of the channel that has attended for years.
