The Future of Microsoft Dynamics GP

I worked with Microsoft Dynamics GP for a long time, 19 years in fact, before I decided to make the switch to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The future of Dynamics GP has been a hot topic since 2008 and the ill-fated Project Green which was a project to look at the feasibility of merging the various Microsoft ERP into one product; despite this project completing fairly quickly with the conclusion that it wasn’t feasible, Project Green kept being mentioned for years afterwards by competitors as meaning the end of Dynamics GP.

Rumours have kept cropping up over the years, sometimes with no basis (such as in 2018 by a Dynamics NAV MVP who said GP had been put into maintenance mode), and sometimes by the words of senior people within Microsoft.

One of the most recent of these were from Mike Morton who, at the Summit NA 2022 conference in October said “There will be no more new releases, and no more new features, for Dynamics GP”. Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, this created quite a ruckus from the partners at the conference, leading to an emergency session between them and Microsoft and leading to a statement from Morton the next day to “clarify” his meaning.

The clarifications given were:

• Microsoft is fully committed to supporting our Dynamics GP customers. This will include new releases (e.g., 18.6, 18.7, 18.8, …) for the foreseeable future on the same timeline and schedule as we have done in the past several years, as outlined in the GP Modern Support Lifecycle.
• If you are an existing GP customer, you can be confident in using Dynamics GP to run your business for years to come.
• New releases will contain regulatory (tax), security updates, and hotfixes, ensuring GP remains up to date.
• New releases will also include updates in usability, reliability, addressing top customer issues, and other areas that are critical in ensuring businesses run successfully on GP.

At the Summit we did make a statement about ‘new features’. This intent was to share that we do not expect significant new capabilities in Dynamics GP, such as new modules. Microsoft’s major investments and innovations will be in other Dynamics 365 offerings.

• The GP ISV (Independent Software Vendors) ecosystem has always been strong and will continue releasing new add-ons that extend core Dynamics GP.

This was just the latest of mixed messages from Microsoft across the years which have caused consternation among the customer/partner base of Dynamics GP, of which I was a part for 19 years.

In April 2023, there was a new announcement from Microsoft which does actually bring the end of Dynamics GP nearer than it has ever been; they announced the end of licence sales to new customers starting with perpetual licences in 2025 and subscription licences in 2026. This means no new licences for new implementations in these years, but existing users can continue adding licences after these dates.

The roadmap announced a while ago by Microsoft is still in force with Microsoft#s commitment (see above) to following it:

Of the older versions of Dynamics GP with a year in the name, there are no versions left in mainstream support; 2015 through 2018 are under extended support which means only security fixes.

If you need regulatory updates then you need to be using Microsoft Dynamics GP under the Modern Lifecycle, which is the one which receives regulatory updates as well as new and improved functionality; the enhancements and improvements are driven by customer suggestions through the Microsoft Ideas website.

If you are on the modern lifecycle version of Dynamics GP, then you need to be applying the update each year as only the most recent version is fully supported.

If you are a Dynamics GP user then, despite what some people are saying, there is no need to make a quick decision about your system, as there is no end date announced by Microsoft and many of the partners have reiterated their intention to continue supporting Dynamics GP with their extensions.

The roadmap, above, is up to and runs through 2028, although with the end of new licences sales, I’d suggest that it is time to at least start considering your options, so that you can develop a plan over the short/medium term so that you can work on implementing a replacement for Dynamics GP before Microsoft do announce it is end of life.