Microsoft's ambitious next-generation business applications are now due out in the "Longhorn" time frame, according to a top Microsoft executive. The upcoming product line, dubbed Project Green, will be built on what Microsoft Senior Vice President Doug Burgum calls a new "global" code base.
Atop that foundation will come functionality now found in Microsoft Business Solutions' Great Plains, Navision, and Solomon business applications, the company has said. (See "Microsoft readies 'Green,' unified code base for business apps".) "Green is now due in the Longhorn timeframe and will stand on the shoulders of R&D around innovation on the platform, database, Office, communications and security...then we come in and add our piece which is innovation around visually connecting transactions, customers, employees and partners," said Burgum who heads Microsoft Business Solutions or MBS.
Longhorn, the next major release of Windows, is now expected in 2005 or 2006. Sources briefed on Green earlier this year expected major parts of it to surface in the fourth quarter of 2004, although they thought Microsoft was optimistic in that projection. Green is to be "the brand new product line that replaces all of the above Great Plains/Navision/Solomon accounting, finance and ERP applications," said one source close to Microsoft at that time.
News source: Internetweek.com
