FARGO, N.D., July 23, 2001 — Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions today announced the availability of Microsoft® Great Plains® Solomon IV Release 4.50, a comprehensive suite of business management and e-business applications for midmarket companies.
Tightly integrated financials, supply chain management, project management and field service management applications of Solomon IV Release 4.50 allow customers to operate their businesses from end to end more productively and economically. In addition, Solomon IV provides customers with powerful tools to customize the solution to meet their unique business needs.
“It is essential for all applications to integrate across the entire business, with access from any location via the Internet. Solomon IV Release 4.50 provides businesses with a high level of flexibility and a deeper functionality to address midmarket needs across various industries,”
said Brian Clark, senior vice president of the Solomon global products organization at Microsoft Great Plains.
“The entire suite of applications ties back to the Solomon IV financial series, giving customers the ability to share and access the same information across their entire business with their partners and customers.”
“Solomon IV Release 4.50 provides midmarket customers with powerful distribution and project management capabilities,”
said Amy Levy, industry analyst with Summit Strategies Inc.
“By tightly integrating the entire suite and e-business capabilities, Solomon IV Release 4.50 enables businesses to increase their productivity and more effectively collaborate and communicate with their vendors and partners.”
Project Management Enhancements
Solomon IV Release 4.50 enables project managers in the construction, engineering and other service-related fields to closely track project details for improved profitability. Several new project management modules are available, enhancing review and approval of time sheets and expenses as well as detailed analysis of employee utilization. This offers customers an enhanced interface between projects and chargeable-time employees, all via the Internet.
With the addition of the Solomon IV advanced payroll module, general and specialty contractors with union payroll needs also will be able to utilize Solomon IV for project management.
Supply Chain Management
The Solomon IV Release 4.50 supply chain management series gives customers the ability to automate and manage distribution processes to reduce inventory levels, optimize utilization and increase customer satisfaction. The addition of two new modules, bill of materials and work order, combined with the enhancements to Solomon IV’s order management, inventory and purchasing modules, further eases use and configuration flexibility.
Field Service Management
Enhancements to the Solomon IV field service management series offer customers a comprehensive solution that automates all operations and accounting areas of a service business. The new graphical dispatch board allows organizations with mobile field technicians to easily dispatch technicians through a graphical user interface, with access to each technician’s job schedule, locations and more, ensuring accurate scheduling and enhanced customer service.
Customization Tools
With Release 4.50, Solomon IV delivers a powerful and innovative new object model, providing unparalleled flexibility in automation and integration of third-party applications. The object model makes any Solomon screen available for automation, including standard screens and new screens created by developers with the Solomon Tools for Visual Basic® . It also will incorporate any customizations in the object without additional or duplicate work.
In addition, Visual Basic for Applications increases the familiarity and usability of Solomon customization manager. This enables developers to extend, integrate and personalize Solomon IV to meet businesses’ unique needs.
Pricing and Availability
Solomon IV Release 4.50 is available immediately in North America. Pricing starts at $4,500 for a single user edition.
About Solomon IV
The award-winning Solomon IV product family is optimized exclusively for small and medium-sized businesses leveraging Microsoft technologies and platforms, including Microsoft Windows® 2000, Microsoft SQL Server™
2000 and the Visual Basic development system. More information can be obtained by visiting http://www.greatplains.com/ , sending e-mail to [email protected], or calling (800) 476-5666 or (419) 424-0422.
About Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions
Microsoft Great Plains provides business applications that help small and midmarket companies become more agile in today’s interconnected economy by extending specific information and procedures to employees, customers, vendors and partners. The business applications automate end-to-end business processes across financials, distribution, project accounting, electronic commerce, human resources and payroll, manufacturing, supply chain management, business analytics, sales and marketing management, and customer service and support. More information about the solutions offered by Microsoft Great Plains can be found at http://www.greatplains.com/ or at http://microsoft.com/greatplains/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Visual Basic and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Great Plains is a registered trademark of Great Plains Software Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Great Plains Software Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
