The emerging message from Microsoft for Dynamics resellers is “go vertical”. That means to specialize not just in one module, like Manufacturing, but in a specific market such as high-tech manufacturing, non-profit accounting, or e-commerce, etc.

The “open source” nature of Dynamics NAV allows for many tightly integrated software add-on products that enable vertical specialization. For those who don’t know, NAV resellers have full access to the business logic (that is contained in the program source code). This makes these add-on packages more than just “add-ons”. They literally become a part of the program. This is both an advantage and a challenge. It gives us more to sell and deliver, but it also gives us more to learn.

We like to stay up to date on as many of these as possible so that we know what to recommend when we advise a prospect or existing customer. Add-ons can save a lot of programming time while giving the customer some very impressive features.  A s “enlightened” resellers, we expect certain things from these vendors. We want to have the right to deliver the product ourselves and to be able to support it completely so our customer is not beholden to two (or more) software vendors. We want to be able to demonstrate competence with the add-on product with or without closed training classes. On line training is great; having to travel for a weeks training is difficult and costly, especially just for updates.

With NAV 2009 it is likely that the add-on market will expand even more and especially for web oriented products.  To keep the momentum these need to stay open source and open training.