About Dynamics Nav (Navision, Attain)

The Navision Company was founded in 1984 in Denmark. In 2000, Navision Software A/S merged with fellow Danish firm Damgaard A/S to form NavisionDamgard A/S. Later the name was changed to Navision A/S. On 11 July 2002 Microsoft bought Navision A/S to go with its previous acquisition of Great Plains. The new division in Microsoft was named Microsoft Business Solutions and also included Microsoft CRM. In September 2005 Microsoft rebranded the product and re-released it as Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, with new role-based GUI, was released in 2008.
Microsoft Dynamics Nav 2013 was released in October 2012.
Microsoft originally planned to develop an entirely new ERP system (Project green), but has decided to continue development of all ERP systems (Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL). All four ERP systems have been launched with the same new role based user interface, SQL based reporting and analysis, Share Point based portal, Pocket PC based mobile clients and clients for Microsoft Office.

Navision has gone through several name changes as the original Navision Company or Microsoft has tried to decide on how it should be marketed. The names "Navision Financials", "Navision Attain", "Microsoft Business Solutions Navision Edition", and the current (2007) "Microsoft Dynamics NAV" have all been used to refer to this product.

Current version Dynamics Nav 2016. Replaces Dynamics Nav 2015 and 2013 which was published in 2 editions as well as multiple language versions.The 2 editions are classic (same look and feel as version 5) and development (role taylored client (RTC) in 2009). Older versions range from 2.0 to 5.0.

As accredited by ICAEW (GB version 4) - please see ICAEW software accreditation site and details of accreditation here.

NAV is licensed by Business Ready License comes in two versions: Business Essentials (BE) and Advance Management (AM). The product gives administrators the option of using either a native database server or Microsoft SQL Server, as the DBMS. Native database performance degrades rapidly with increases in size.

Nav is a scalable ERP solution with options to purchase and use some or all of the available modules / functions. This would allow an organisation to use the base ledgers (general, sales, purchase and fixed asset ledgers) or use Nav as the complete business operating system through using the manufacturing module, for example.
 
So Nav can be used by businesses with a turnover ranging from £1m to £2bn!

Comparable and also owned by Microsoft – Great Plains (GP), Solomon (SL) Comparable but not owned by Microsoft – JD Edwards, SAP Business 1 Larger scale – SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft
Smaller scale – Microsoft Accounting 2008 (Professional and Express), Sage, QuickBooks.

One point to note: the finance application market is showing signs of all applications meeting in the middle ground. The larger scale applications are being redesigned to fit the middle ground and the functionality of the smaller applications is very comparable to those in the middle ground. The only difference will be scalability and how many users need access.

Nav licensing is sold through Solution Centres, a network of global businesses known in Microsoft circles as the indirect selling chain. So Nav cannot be purchased direct from Microsoft and cannot be purchased on line. All initial enquiries through the Microsoft web site are managed through referrals process via the indirect selling chain. So the business requesting more information is allocated a Solution Centre. This Solution Centre may provide a full range of Nav services or just enable licence acquisition. There are a number of these Solution Centres across the UK. Licence prices are fixed by Microsoft and there will be an annual maintenance charge.