Microsoft Project Green details emerging

Doug Burgum, head of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS), has been giving out more details on Project Green lately. In a nutshell:

• Project Green is an entire new code base that will replace current code for Great Plains, Navision, and Solomon (I'm assuming Axapta is in meant to be in that list). It will be released along with Microsoft's new OS version, dubbed Longhorn.



• Burgum admits that MBS has not wanted to talk much about Project Green in order not to upset current customers and partners. This explains why, until now, not many customers knew about it. In an interview last week, Burgum said, ""We have large installed bases of happy customers who continue to buy add-on modules." He also said that MBS will continue to sell and support the current-generation applications for years.



• Project Green will be built on top of a new integration and tools layer that Microsoft is developing, called Microsoft Business Framework (MBF). The next-gen applications will sit on top of MBF, which will sit on top of Microsoft's .NET. Details on MBF are sketchy to me at this point, but it appears that MBF will provide integration and perhaps even some core functionality that is common between the applications. The platform will be open in the sense that Microsoft business partners will be able to write additional applications on top of MBF.

InternetWeek has more on Project Green, and CRN has more on MBF.

The Microsoft Momentum partner conference is in New Orleans this week, and discussion of Project Green is on the agenda. One Spectator reader plans to be there and indicates that he will brief me on details.