Kevin Turner and Kirill Tatarinov: Convergence 2012 Keynote

KIRILL TATARINOV: Good morning, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Convergence 2012, welcome to Houston, welcome to the world of the opportunity.

I used to live in Houston, and when the city found out that I’m coming back and bringing 10,000 of my close friends and colleagues, they gave me this hat. I thought I would share it with you.

This is the biggest Convergence ever, over 10,000 people, completely sold-out sessions, great content, almost 270 companies that are presenting their solutions built on Dynamics on the show floor, 50 countries represented here, amazing event, amazing show. On Wednesday, we’ll have Colin Powell share with you stories on leadership. That’s certainly something not to miss. And we’re truly proud to have this opportunity to be in this great city telling our story, and sharing our vision for the business of the future.

Yesterday, I had a chance to reconnect with an old friend and local artist, this is one of his art pieces here presented. His name is Dr. Valentine Gerstman (ph), and he does pretty amazing photography. And through his work, he projects Houston as the city of the future. And we thought it was so fitting for us to talk about the future of business, and the world of opportunity here in this great city, in the city of the future.

Today, it is also my great pleasure to have opportunity for us to have a very special guest, Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer, and I would like you to join me in welcoming Kevin Turner on stage.

Kevin.

(Applause.)

KEVIN TURNER: Well, good morning. (Audience response.) Let me try that again. Good morning! (Audience response.) It’s fantastic to be here. I’m so excited, I’m honored to be at Convergence, our 16th Annual Convergence, as Kirill said, over 10,000 people from 50 countries, hundreds of our best partners around the world to have a great week, a great show, and certainly we’re going to learn, we’re going to share, and we’ve got a lot of exciting stuff to really share with you and go through with you this week. So, we’re very, very excited about that, and I’m grateful for this opportunity.

When I thought about my remarks today, I thought, “What should I talk about?” And when you step back and reflect in the world, there’s a lot going on right now, and this new era sort of came to mind for me. It’s a new era for technology, and the trends that we’re seeing in technology. It’s a new era for business and what’s happening in the business place. And it’s a new era for Microsoft, and it’s a new era for Dynamics. That’s where we are as a company. That’s where we are as a division, and it’s something that, again, I think it’s a very exciting time to be in technology, and to be in IT. And so that’s the title of my remarks today are about this new era, and that’s what I want to jump in and share with you.

But, before I do, let me formally welcome each and every one of you to Convergence. As I said, our 16th annual conference, we’re very, very excited this week to be able to share and learn from you, and then share the exciting and great things that we’re doing. But let me also say, thank you so much for your time this week, thank you for your partnership, your support, your belief in Microsoft, and our partners, and what we’re about, because we couldn’t do what we do without you, and certainly we know that. Just please accept our heartfelt thanks for being here, and for the support that you continue to give us.

Let me set it up with a little bit of an overview of Microsoft and what we’re up to. Microsoft, as many of you know, is the world’s largest software company, but we’re a lot more than just that. We employ over 95,000 people in 191 countries around the world. We’ve got 640,000 partners that contribute to our ecosystem around the world. We cater to both businesses — and that’s small, medium and large enterprises — as well as consumers. In fact, we have over 1.5 billion people who use our products each and every day. And that’s an awesome responsibility that we have.

We’re a company that continues to invest in research and development. And when you think about the technology companies out there, there are fewer and fewer continuing to double down in R&D, but not Microsoft. Microsoft is an organization this year that is going to invest over nine billion U.S. dollars in research and development. That’s $3 billion more than the next closest technology company, ladies and gentlemen. So, again, we’re very privileged to be in that kind of environment where our per annum spend on R&D is either No. 1 or No. 2 of any company in any industry in the world. That’s the deep-seated belief we have at Microsoft, and the importance of research and development, and continually working to invent the future.

We’ve also had some very strong business results. You may not know our year that ended in June, we had record earnings, record revenue, record earnings per share, and record cash flow as an organization. That’s something that doesn’t get a lot of press, but honestly I wanted to be able to share that with you today so that you know that belief, and that long-term R&D investment continues to be healthy and strong, and that’s what allows us to do that. So, the business results have never been better in our company as well. And we’ve got some extremely exciting things, some game-changing things, honestly, on the very short-term horizon that we’re going to share with you today and throughout this event.

And then when you think about what we do and why we do what we do, it’s about impact. It’s about this idea of being great citizens of the world, and where we serve our customers, and certainly that’s deep-seated in our mission statement as a company. And I think we have one of the coolest mission statements in all of business, this idea of enabling people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. That’s what we’re about at Microsoft and, again, I want to give you a quick overview of the company and how we’re doing, and what we’re all about.

When you think about what’s going on in the marketplace, let me start with some business trends that are very real for each and every one of us, including Microsoft. First up certainly is the economy. When we came through 2008-9 and the macroeconomic crisis happened, now we’ve got some financial struggles that we’re seeing around the world, particularly in Europe. There’s a lot happening from a volatility standpoint. But we do know that things like technology is the great enabler. We also see incredible geopolitics happening. There is no one standard that you can now do for the world. We now have a different standard for the U.S. than Europe. We have a different standard from Europe than Asia, or Southeast Asia. And then certainly China has its own dynamic and its own standards. And so there’s multiple standards and politics in play that we all each have to stay attuned to, and make sure that we continue to be sensitive to.

People in social, and what’s happening with the speed of information, and the fact that people are basically connecting anywhere, anytime, on any device, again, has changed the dynamics of business and society as a whole. And then in technology there’s all kinds of trends, including the cloud, which is the great enabler. And so these business trends have also exploded into a few technology trends. And when you think about the technology trends that we’re facing right now, certainly first and foremost it starts with the cloud, and what is happening in the cloud, and what we’ve got to do to make sure that we’re participating in the cloud. And the data explosion, and this mounds and mounds of data, and everybody seeking to turn it into information and knowledge continues to be an opportunity as more and more proliferation of devices and the ecosystem of computers create more and more data.

I talk a little bit about social, and we’re going to talk more about it, but this becomes a bigger and bigger trend as it infiltrates itself throughout all of the different entities and devices in both the personal life and the workspace. And that’s something, again, I think each of us have to be very sensitive to. The consumerization of IT, and the idea that you can bring any device you want to work is a huge opportunity, and one that, again, I think we can embrace as a collective group and do well, and certainly connectivity is just exploding along with the devices, and continues to happen more and more including in emerging markets, where we’re seeing better and better connectivity.

And one of the most exciting trends that we see on the horizon is this natural interaction and new user interfaces that are emerging. We saw a little bit of it with our Kinect platform and Xbox, where we actually used gestures and speech and movement to be able to dictate the user interface. But that’s only the beginning, voice, video, and data and the convergence of that, and speech, and pen and handwriting recognition, and those things are going to continue to explode and proliferate across the technology, and across the different platforms.

And when you think about the opportunity that we have, we know that first and foremost our long-term investments that we made in the cloud are ones that we’re really, really excited about, because the shift to the cloud, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago it was sort of talked about as a trend, now it’s in full mainstream. We’re seeing tens of millions of customers move to the cloud in very, very rapid ways. And if you look at this particular quote from Forrester, it’s going to go from a $40 billion industry to a $240 billion industry just by 2020. We actually think that number is light, maybe even by 2, at the speed that we’re seeing the cloud take hold.

And one of the big things that I’m real proud of today is the investments we’ve made in the cloud as a company over the last five years. If you look at where we’ve really doubled down as an organization, starting with the database, moving to infrastructure, and productivity and business applications, and being able to bring a cloud story across the Microsoft portfolio is one of the things that we’re most proud of today, because the cloud story that we have today, across the three distinct types of clouds from the private cloud to the public cloud and the hybrid cloud, is without a doubt the deepest, broadest, and most enterprise-ready cloud solutions on the planet are the Microsoft solutions. And that’s something; again, we’re seeing millions of customers move to the cloud in a very, very profound way across these distinct cloud services. And we’ve got some exciting cloud services to talk to you about a little later on in this program where you’re going to see, again, where we’re continuing to accelerate our pace into the cloud.

And there’s a few things that I just want to share with all of you out there, because when you think about the cloud I think one of the things that gives Microsoft an advantage is, we’re not trying to move you to our cloud. We’re basically saying if you want to build your own cloud, we’ll enable that, we’ll help you do that. If you want to go to a partner-hosted cloud, we’re going to enable that and help you do that. If you want to go to a Microsoft cloud, we’re also going to help you do that.

The important thing that I want you to note is that we’re building a cloud where you decide where and how you want to go to the cloud. As long as you have Active Directory completely deployed, and System Center completely deployed, you can really leverage the common technologies that we have across identity, virtualization, management, and development. And no other company can provide that to you in the cloud. And, again, I think that’s one of the things that we’re very, very excited about.

The majority of our cloud deployments, ladies and gentlemen, are in the hybrid space. There are certain pieces of data for certain sets of users that customers want to control, and want to manage. There are other certain pieces of data and certain sets of users where a customer would want a partner or Microsoft to manage, and the ability to do both, again, we think is our strategic advantage, and something we’re very, very excited about.

Another big trend as I talked about in the intro was this idea of consumerization of IT. And what’s happening there is you see more and more mobile applications. This is really no surprise. The technology is playing a more important role in people’s personal lives, and consumer experiences are spilling over into their professional lives. And if you think about the convergence of the technology, it’s the idea of a digital work style converging with the digital lifestyle. And again, we think that’s something that Microsoft should be very, very uniquely positioned to do and do well.

So, we actually have a strategy, ladies and gentlemen, around the four pillars of consumerization of IT, because we’ve said, “Hey, as a company we need to embrace the consumerization of IT.” It’s happening very, very rapidly. And when you think about this, it all starts with our Windows platform and the ability to have great devices and great user interfaces, cross-platform.

And I’ll talk to you a little bit more about Windows 8 in a moment, but this is something, again, we think we’ve really done a tremendous job being able to open up a whole new ecosystem of devices and platforms and user interfaces. If you think about the management aspect and security, there aren’t very many enterprise-grade, or enterprise-ready security and management solutions out there in the marketplace today. With System Center 2012, we’ve basically said we’re not only going to manage the Windows devices extremely well, we’re also going to manage the other guys’ devices.

So, we will now embrace and manage Android, iPhone, iPad, and the other third-party vendors that are out there. And we’re going to continue to open up that management platform and provide that. We’ve got a very, very strong release with System Center 2012 in this capacity. And then you think about the best productivity experience, and it starts certainly with Dynamics and CRM, and what we’re seeing there and the different business applications that both Dynamics has created and that our partners have created.

You also think about SharePoint, the fastest-growing product in the history of Microsoft. There is something again exploding in the business productivity space and Lync, our unified communications platform and what’s happened there, and certainly Office and Exchange being in the cloud. So, not only are we going to run first and best on the Microsoft platform, we’re also going to run best in class on the other guy’s platform with our productivity experiences, embracing the consumerization of IT.

And then you look at the development and the unified application development area. This is an area where we’ve traditionally had a stronghold around .NET, and what’s happening there. In the new world with IE10, and Windows 8 what we’ve basically said is it’s the language of your choice. We embrace Java, C++, C#, BizSharp, whatever it may be. We’ve embraced the other guy’s languages, as well, and opened up the ecosystem, utilizing the platform to be able to bring you a tremendous development environment and a development experience that’s open to the world from a developer’s standpoint. And we’re very excited about that.

And when you look at what’s happening with Windows 8, Windows 8 we had launched the consumer preview just a couple of weeks ago. In the first 24 hours of launching the consumer preview for this particular product, ladies and gentlemen, we had over 1 million downloads in 24 hours. So, when you think about the hundreds of millions of units that we’re going to sell in just that first year, it is an awesome thing that we’re getting very, very excited about.

Now, there’s a few things I want to talk about with Windows 8 specifically. No. 1, it is a completely reimagined operating system for us as an organization. It not only runs great on Intel and X-86, it will also be the first operating system on the planet that also runs on ARM and system-on-a-chip. So, the ability to have multiple architectures that we support with a consistent user experience is something that we’re just very, very excited about.

The second thing I would tell you is it’s also enterprise-ready and consumer friendly. So, no longer are you going to have to make compromises as an operating system. Today a lot of companies have to decide, do I want end user flexibility, or do I want great security and management. Do, I want touch, or do I want the ability to have a traditional mouse and keyboard. Guess what, with Windows 8 we’re taking the “or” out, and we’re basically inserting the word “and.” You can have a great touch experience and with one click you can go right back to the desktop that you’ve come to know and love.

You can have a great end-user consumer flexibility and you’re going to have great security and great management built into the product. So, it is an operating system without compromise. And again, when you look at where we’re headed, and all of the different things in this particular OS, the fact that it’s going to run across multiple chip architectures, it’s going to open up a whole new plethora of devices, a whole new ecosystem of both touch and touch-enabled devices around the planet.

And when you think about where that’s going to go and what our long-term vision is for it, it’s pretty simple. Microsoft will be this year the first company on the planet to be able to have a consistent user experience from the smartphone to the tablet, to the slate, to the reader, to the laptop, to the rich client, and to the television, with our Metro UI. And we know the power of getting that consistent user experience is something that our whole product portfolio is going to benefit from. So, this idea of embracing consumerization of IT, we couldn’t be more excited about it, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to open up a whole new game for us to be able to participate on some devices and some form factors that we can’t today, that we will tomorrow and you’ve only seen the beginning.

And again, Windows is going to come in many shapes and many sizes, and the ability to get that operating system without compromises for every business, no matter how big or small you are, is something we’re very, very excited about. Now, when you think about all the trends, both from a business standpoint and a technology standpoint that you have to deal with, as the world becomes more and more complex and change is coming at a rapid pace, we need technology that helps you simplify your business processes and supports you as you evolve your business.

And we want to make sure that Microsoft’s business solutions deliver the speed that you want, the simplicity that you want, because the world is not getting simpler and the technology has to enable speed. This is something we’ve worked very, very hard on as an organization. And our mission is to help you transform into a Dynamic Business. And when you think about Microsoft Dynamics, and realizing your potential, we have a solution for all types and all sizes of businesses. Small and medium-sized businesses are deploying the full Dynamics suite that we have and opting for specific workloads like revenue and performance management. And when you think about the opportunity we have to help you increase your margins and grow your business, whether it be a large enterprise or medium-sized business, we have the solution and we’re working very, very hard on that.

In retail, Dynamics is offering out of the box connection from point of sale to the headquarters business system. And in manufacturing we’re seeing a solution that supports a lean and discrete process models, and single system instance with planning and costing capabilities that work across all three models, something we’re very, very excited about.

And we’re offering the flexibility, ladies and gentlemen, and the agility that our competitors cannot touch and I’m very, very impressed with the growth in this business. This is one of the fastest-growing businesses that we have in all of Microsoft, and there’s a reason for that and it’s the technology, the flexibility, and the value. Those are the things that we stress with this particular platform. And we have a world-class partner channel that supports all sizes of customers with us, as well.

And you think about this Dynamic Business model and what’s happening there, our vision is focused on people and giving them the right tools to realize their potential. And certainly it’s around proactive applications. For years applications were all built on what happened and people looked in the past and said, hey, give me a report of our exceptions.

Today what people want is not a report of their exceptions. Today what people want is a report of what their exceptions will be if they don’t do something about them now, and the ability to get proactive and predict what’s going to happen with business applications has never been greater than it is today. And the fact that the connected organization in mobile computing has exploded cross-device, cross-platform, cross-geography is something, again, that’s very, very exciting from a platform perspective.

So, we believe that business applications can not only increase productivity, they can also help people aspire to a greater level of innovation, performance, and commitment. And again, that’s something, as you think about where we’re headed as an organization, we’re very excited about. And it begins and ends, ladies and gentlemen, with people. No matter what business you’re in, we’re all in the people business. The single greatest asset that any one of us has, as a company, is the people that work with us and for us. And the opportunity that we have to equip them so that the technology is intuitive, personal, and tailored to their needs, has never been greater than it is today.

I love this example from Pete’s Coffee and Tea, that’s from the California Bay Area. It’s a great example of technology transformation at every level, because company leaders from the team to the warehouse, to the folks who interact with customers every day, there is an opportunity there to bring empowered people, help them make better decisions, and give them the tools that they need for success, because you see, everybody is trying to take the data, turn it into information, take the information, turn it into knowledge, take the knowledge and most importantly, turn that into decisions and faster decisions, at that.

So, when you think about the opportunity to make a bigger and bigger impact, that’s what we see that the challenge is, and where we’re headed as an organization. So, as I began my remarks today, this is an exciting new era. It’s an exciting new era for business. It’s an exciting new era for technology, and it’s an exciting new era for Microsoft and Microsoft Dynamics. And when you think about the year that we have in front of us, and the important opportunity we have, our Dynamics line of products and solutions, ladies and gentlemen, is designed to connect people within an organization and to their customers and their suppliers, around the world, and make it easier for businesses to collaborate and deliver results.

That’s what we’re trying to get done as an organization. And Dynamics allows us to do that across from SQL and the database and the infrastructure, all the way up through mission-critical business applications, which is an entirely new frontier and new domain and we’re very excited in embracing it. And we’re going to continue to help businesses focus more on building their future and reviewing the past, but more importantly predicting the future and what’s going to give people the tools they need to be successful.

And when you think about Microsoft the company, and where we are as an organization, basically every product on this page is either getting refreshed, or will be refreshed in the next 12 to 16 months. Every single product we have, speed, ladies and gentlemen, is the most important thing in our business. And we’re driving it very, very hard.

And when you think about new releases of Windows, new releases of productivity applications, new releases of databases, new releases of systems management, being contemporary in the new era is something that we’re very, very committed to as an organization. And this is, without a doubt, in our 36-year history as a company, this is the most exciting time we’ve ever had in technology, with the amount of change that’s coming, externally in the marketplace, and with the amount of technology innovation we’re going to back up and put in that marketplace and are putting in that marketplace in real time.

And we’re going to do all of that with our wonderful Microsoft partner ecosystem. And as I said, many of them are represented here and you’ll beat them or you have met them throughout this event. The opportunity we have, again, is to bring you great flexibility; great value, and do it in a contemporary way where you can lead your business into the future. And we’re going to do all of that by working with you one customer at a time, one partner at a time, one market at a time.

And our main objective as an organization, ladies and gentlemen, is to earn the right to be your trusted advisor. And I want you to have a great event, a great conference. If you need anything from me, or if there’s ever anything I can do for you, [email protected], because we’ve never been more committed to Microsoft Dynamics, and to where we’re going in the future as a company.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

KIRILL TATARINOV: Thank you, Kevin. Thank you for being here with us, and thank you for your terrific remarks. Obviously, Microsoft is what makes Dynamics shine, and it’s terrific to hear how we all push it together and move forward. But, before I let you go I want to ask you one question that many people in the room are asking me when I meet with our customers, partners, and prospects. So, that’s really a question about Kevin Turner as a Dynamics customer. And if you could perhaps shed some light on what you do and how you manage our massive organization that connects with those people on a daily basis.

KEVIN TURNER: Absolutely. At the company, when I came to the company about seven years ago, almost seven years ago now, one of the things that we had installed in our company was this sort of black box that no one liked called Siebel. And there just are no happy Siebel customers in the world, Kirill. That’s just a true story. And certainly our whole sales force was based on that. And one of the things, as Tony Scott, our CIO, and I worked on collectively with our CRM team there in Dynamics, is moving 100 percent off of Siebel onto Microsoft CRM. And one of the we got a standing ovation from the sales force when we were able to deliver and finish that product. So, first and foremost, tens of thousands of people in Microsoft rely on that platform exclusively and CRM for all of our opportunity management with customers.

Secondly, we’ve also put a lot of our support and engineering and some of our business processing that we’ve done around the world on the ERP platform. We’ve got some incredible things going there with our foundation services and what’s happening there, and building and operating the Microsoft datacenters that we operate around the world. Those are all based on Dynamics. And certainly our retail operation, where we now have 15 stores opened up. We’re going to 75 in the next two years.

The opportunity we have there is 100 percent of that particular new concept that’s all based on Dynamics from the backend, through the point of sale and everything in between. And so when you think about what we’ve done with support, and engineering services, like legal and consulting, we manage all of the 95,000 employees utilizing Dynamics and the Dynamics platform, from CRM, through ERP and our business applications. And you know what, we’re just getting started, because Tony Scott, our CIO has a quota to keep doing more and more and more. So, we want to be Microsoft’s first customer with the Microsoft Dynamics platform.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Terrific and become a Dynamics business so we can serve this great audience even better.

KEVIN TURNER: In a better way, absolutely.

KIRILL TATARINOV: All right.

KEVIN TURNER: You guys have a great show. Again, if I can help in any way, let me know; I look forward to seeing many of you throughout the conference. Thanks a lot.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate it.

(Applause.)

KIRILL TATARINOV: As Kevin told you, our vision, the vision that we project to our business customers, is what we call Dynamic Business. This is sort of the true magnetic North Star that we have been driving and we have been delivering. When we think about Dynamic Business, business of the future, business that is edge out, business who takes advantage of all of the technology trends, as that business overcomes the challenges of the economics and grabs onto all of the opportunities. There are a few things that we really believe are important. First and foremost, Dynamic Business is the one that takes an intently people-centric approach.

It’s people who drive business results, people in business who make the opportunity happen. It’s people in business who drive success and deliver results. And when we think about it, we think job No. 1 for us is to help people in your organization become better professionals, whether they’re engaged in the sales operations and marketing, and finance, and operations and manufacturing, and retail, our job is to deliver solutions, together with our partners, solutions that really helps those people be successful, be smarter, and move faster. And as we do that, we think about individual productivity scenarios, and we think about roles in your business, and we enable individuals in your organizations to do a better job through our technology.

As we do that it’s very important for us to think forward and really think about the direction that business is taking. And if you think of just one most fundamental shift that we executed in Microsoft, and in Microsoft business solutions, that change is really about taking all of the experience that we gained in delivering intellectual innovation in technology and applying it into business.

So, as we’ve been building a solutions technology platform, tools and systems, today we are innovating in the business process so we can deliver solutions to you that make your business better, make your business smarter, and does it all through making your people smarter and really teaching people through technology on how business process would run, and how the business can be transformed through that technology. There is truly a world of opportunity that is opening up for the business of the future in the way communication and connectedness and collaboration happens in the world today.

The emergence of social technology really provides an opportunity for us to essentially move the traditional legacy system of record into the system of engagement. And, through that, we’re essentially enabling you to break the electronic concreteness of the past and move your business into the future by connecting your people, by enabling your people to communicate, by enabling your people to collaborate in real time, and by really taking all of the wealth of communication, collaboration, and social networking opportunity, and applying those into very specific business scenarios.

So, I don’t think of it as separate, something that is bolted on, something that exists by itself. We think of social collaboration in context of business, and these are the kind of things that we’re focused on, and these are the kind of things that we’re delivering.

Kevin talked a little bit about business workloads, and I think this is a very important point for us to emphasize, the business of the future really wants to run solutions in a different way. And in that process of breaking away from the past, and removing the world of electronic concrete, we see businesses wanting to implement solutions on a workload-by-workload basis, do it fast, do it quickly, do it with enormous speed and precision. So, breaking away from the system of record into the system of engagement means that the deployment mode must be very flexible, and that is precisely what we’re focused on.

If an organization wants to implement end-to-end solutions for either back offices or front offices, we have this complete proactive application out of the box solving all the needs. But, if an organization only wants to implement one specific workload, and go workload by workload at a time running their stores, running their plants, managing their revenue and sales professionals, marketing, support, we have an opportunity and we give you a chance to deploy exactly what you need exactly when you need it, and continue staying with us on the journey towards becoming a Dynamic Business. It is a very important trend that we’re pushing forward in the industry. We’re truly uniquely positioned to deliver on that promise of business workload and help you implement solutions for the future, and help you become a Dynamic Business of the future.

I want to show you an example of a company, a company here in Texas called HEB. They are in dairy manufacturing, and they also have stores. If you are here in Texas, you probably saw their great, great stores with great produce, and great products. HEB chose to implement Microsoft Dynamics to manage their manufacturing process. They obviously, like everyone else, had a wide range of solutions they could choose from, but they chose Dynamics so they could truly run this dynamic workload running their manufacturing facilities connecting with system of record that they still have running in their headquarters.

This was a very exciting implementation for us; both Microsoft and our partner Johnson Solutions worked very closely with HEB to help them fully embrace, implement, and make successful the system. There is an organization called International Dairy Food Association, and that organization gave the award to Microsoft and Johnson Solutions for this great implementation, truly a leading case, leading example of how manufacturing workload from Microsoft Dynamics can power such an advanced forward-looking organization.

Let’s take a look at the video.

(Video segment.)

What a great story. Thank you, HEB. I know folks from HEB are here in the room, let’s give them a round of applause. (Applause.)

It is the flexibility of the solution that enabled HEB to achieve such great operational enhancements in their manufacturing plant, and we’re ecstatic to have them as our customers.

In business applications with Microsoft Dynamics, we are truly changing the game, and we have a truly unique approach in how we move businesses forward. First and foremost, that unique approach is based on intent focus on research and development. Not only do we reinvest back into R&D more than any other vendor in the industry of business applications as a percentage of our revenue, but with Microsoft Dynamics we essentially uptake all of the $9 1/2 billion that Microsoft puts into innovation and funnel it to our business customers.

Kevin showed some great examples of how that collaboration occurs. Kevin showed some great examples how Dynamics essentially surfaces everything that we do in Microsoft, and put it into the hands and into the desks of business professionals. That’s what exemplifies us in the industry, that’s what truly makes us unique, and that’s what truly helps us to enable you to become Dynamic Businesses of the future.

Our unique power and our unique strength is in the fact that Microsoft innovates and participates in both delivering technology to consumers and to business customers. And that the amalgamation of the two is what really enables us to do amazing things with technology, and really be on the driving edge of helping businesses get consumerized, and really drive forward this enormously important trend that we’re all observing, trends of consumerization of the enterprise.

So, if there is one thing that I would like for you to take away what is unique about Dynamics, it is the fact that Dynamics is a business solution from Microsoft. It is No. 1 strength for us. It is the No. 1 opportunity for us. And it’s also a very important responsibility to make sure that we carry all of the Microsoft innovation and deliver it to you, our customers, and also do it in very close cooperation with our partners.

Kevin talked about cloud. Cloud is perhaps one of the most significant, most important opportunities of our lives as it relates to technology. It’s also a massive area of investment for Microsoft across the board from infrastructure to platform, and most importantly, of course, towards delivering finished, complete applications delivered from the cloud.

We made some significant statements at Convergence last year, and this year we’re essentially telling you how we’re continuing to deliver in Microsoft Dynamics on a cloud-based approach. The world of business solutions as it relates to cloud is notoriously complex. And as we’ve worked with many hundreds and thousands of customers around the world to understand what their needs are that are relate to the cloud, we’re finding that most people really want to see mixed scenarios, and mixed workloads. And that is precisely where we’re uniquely positioned, and enable people to deliver mixed workloads, some of which are running into the cloud. And obviously Dynamics CRM Online has been a poster child of what business solutions in the cloud ought to be. We’re seeing tremendous traction, and we’re seeing that product really is taking the market by storm and gaining market share quite phenomenally.

But, as it relates to financial workloads, and business planning workloads, and some of the operational management workloads, we see that people want to run some of those workloads in private clouds, others in public cloud, others just in traditional on premises deployments. And that’s precisely where we’re uniquely positioned to deliver. We deliver cloud on your terms. So, you can take full advantage of elasticity. You can take full advantage of scale.

And, at the same time, you maintain control, and you stay in power of the solution, and you’re able to do it exactly the way you want it, exactly the way your users want it. We don’t force things on you. That’s why “do not get forced” has been one of the most important messages that we’ve been articulating to the marketplace as it relates to cloud and as it relates to cloud-based deployment.

Simplicity and agility. The traditional world of business applications has been filled with solutions that are enormously hard to implement, almost impossible to customize, and, as a result, requiring significant investment not only to get going, but also to continue to maintain. The approach that we’re taking, and the unique differentiator that has been a very important point in everything that we do, it’s the simplicity, making sure that we truly deliver solutions that is intuitive, that your people love, that your people would want to use, that you really have business solutions for everybody in your organization, not just the small domain of very deep experts who spend time in attempting to master the tool.

Simplicity is the most important tenet in our R&D organization. Everything that we do is powered by that very significant tenet. Being agile and helping you being agile is another very important part of that massive area of investment. Essentially, giving you tools that you can adopt to your business, giving you tools that you can fine-tune to the exact nature of your unique business process is another very important priority of ours.

We all know that every business is unique. And we all know that you need systems that fit your business, not the other way around. This industry knows the massive amount of tools that would come to you, and companies that would come to you, and try to teach you how to run your business. In our view tools and solutions need to help you run the business, but who better than you know where the business needs to go, and understands your unique specific requirements. That’s why we’re providing technologies that can be fine-tuned and customized, and adopted without you having to write code through a model-based approach that really enables you to stay current, and stay ahead of the curve, and help your people work with the very simple, very agile, very fast solutions.

So, that’s the unique approach, and that’s how we’re changing the game in the market of business applications. As we do that, we’ll look at several very important industries of ours, and we’ll look at a few very important industries that we see are deeply in need of innovation. One such industry that really makes us truly, truly excited about the opportunities that we all have, also the industry that affects everybody here, and everybody around the world, is the retail. The retail industry right now is undergoing massive transformation. There is a massive push towards modernization in the world of retail. We see that. We hear it from retailers. And this is the case where, three years ago, we made very important strategic decisions to invest in specific solutions for retailers to really help the industry move forward, move into the future, really help us together work on enabling the dynamic retailer, the dynamic retail business of the future.

And today, I think it would be very proper for us to demonstrate what we really mean when we say changing the game in business applications is by showing you an example of the dynamic retailer, the retailer of the future. We’re going to talk about a fictitious company called Contoso, Contoso Electronics. They’re implementing Microsoft Dynamics, and they are also doing things that have really sort of removed the boundary and merged together the world of today that is only enabled for online retailers and how that world, how that truly innovative Web-based approach now can be implemented in brick and mortar stores, and how that retailer can run really symmetric processes and become a dynamic retailer as a result.

So, please join me in welcoming Craig and Jennifer who are going to help me demonstrate what the retailer of the future does, and how we’re changing the game for retail. Craig, Jennifer, welcome.

CRAIG: Thanks, Kirill.

Good morning, Convergence. Welcome to Contoso Electronics. Today, I’m going to be taking care of business on the retail floor. I’m a sales associate, and I have a very handy point of sale system that will help me get that done right over here.

JENNIFER: And I’m Jennifer, and I’m going to be doing something I don’t normally like to do, but I’m going to do it for all of you. I’m going to go shopping.

CRAIG: Now, Jennifer is one of our most important VIP customers at Contoso. We’ve recently been running a marketing campaign to get her, and others like her back through the doors to buy home theater equipment from us. And we’ve done that via a Facebook event.

JENNIFER: Now, I’m going to go in and check in, because I want my husband to know that I’m here. He is so excited for me to get this for us.

CRAIG: Now, checking in is very important to us here at Contoso. We actually offer a 10 percent discount when people check in in the store using Facebook. And the reason we do this, it’s great marketing promotion for us. Jennifer’s friends all know that she’s out shopping at our store, and loving our products and services.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Let’s ask the room. How many of you folks actually know that by checking in with something you can save real money as you go shopping? Anybody? All right. Very few, hopefully you’re going to learn something that’s not only going to help you save money in business, but also in your personal life through this experience.

CRAIG: Thank you. So, Jennifer has checked in, and I’ve actually got a new arrival notice that’s come up on my tablet. And what I can do is, I can go ahead and see who is in the store, and I can actually learn more information about Jennifer so we can have a good sales engagement. I can see her purchase history here. I can see suggested products, we’ll get to that shortly. Most importantly, I can see what she’s registered with, and why she’s probably here visiting with us. I’m ready to talk to Jennifer.

KIRILL TATARINOV: And, of course, privacy is a very important concern for Microsoft and for Microsoft Dynamics. And as a sales rep, Craig can see this information. He can only see it because Jennifer actually opted in, enabling the store to see that.

CRAIG: That’s absolutely correct.

Jennifer, hi. Welcome back to Contoso.

JENNIFER: Hi, thank you.

CRAIG: Now, I assume that you’re here for our home theater promotion.

JENNIFER: I am. I got a Facebook notification about it. I’m a big fan.

CRAIG: Great. So, what are you looking for today?

JENNIFER: Well, I would like a home theater system. I think I would like it to have Blu-Ray, and I don’t really want to spend more than $1,000.

CRAIG: OK. I think we can probably help you get into a pretty good system.

Audience, don’t tell Jennifer this, but my tablet actually helps me out quite a bit here. It’s suggesting products for this home theater promotion based on what we know about her purchase history compared with other people like her, and what they’ve actually bought in the past.

So, Jennifer, I actually have a system I think would be a good fit for you. What I would like to do is, I would like to take you into our home theater experience, and show you some information about that, and show you a bit more about it.

JENNIFER: OK, great.

CRAIG: So, let’s walk over here, and what we have in our store is, we have an environment that we can use to do comparison shopping. So, I’m going to sign in here, and what we’ve got is a system set up that allows me to bring up information on all of our different home theaters. And I can do it by interacting via my voice. Dynamics compare KT 123.

Now, Jennifer, what you see here is the system I think is going to be a great fit for you. It’s right around your price range, it has the Blu-Ray feature you want. It has a lot of great speakers, and it comes along with some home installation for free. What do you think?

JENNIFER: I think it’s great. Do you think that we could take a look at a price comparison so I can make sure I’m making a good decision?

CRAIG: Absolutely. The in-store experience we have, we’ve basically taken the same technology that exists for comparison shopping online, and we’ve brought it right into the retail experience. And Dynamics can help me with that, too.

Dynamics price. And what you see here, Jennifer, is the price of some of our competitors, not just local retailers, but online stores. And you can also see the ratings of those different merchants. Now, you’re a loyal customer, you already know that we look after you, but you can see other people believe that as well.

What do you think?

JENNIFER: Looks great.

KIRILL TATARINOV: That’s fantastic, and I think this is also a very important point to stress and demonstrate to you when we talk about consumerization of enterprise, and when we say that we’re uptaking all of the consumer-oriented technologies, such as Kinect and Bing, into the business setting, this is an example of how it works, and how it really enables scenarios that frankly weren’t possible before. And this is just one example in retail, and that is applicable broadly into a broad range of industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and so on and so forth.

CRAIG: All right. Let’s get Jennifer checked out here. I can just take care of this transaction right on the retail floor for you. So, let’s go ahead and add this to the cart.

JENNIFER: Before we do that, can we check the sound? I want to make sure it’s going to disturb my neighbors.

CRAIG: Absolutely we can. Let’s crank up that home theater and have a listen.

(Audio segment.)

Great. Let’s add it to the cart. Actually, this is an interesting thing here, Jennifer.

So, because you’re such a loyal VIP customer, my system is actually telling you that we’re going to offer you a free printer cartridge for that printer you bought back on Valentine’s Day.

JENNIFER: Sweet.

CRAIG: Yes. All right. So, let’s go through the details here. We have the home theater added in. We’ve got the VIP printer cartridge. We’ve got free home installation, and my system’s tied into our service scheduling. So, we’ll get that set up shortly. And here’s the discount we’ve given you for checking in on Facebook today. So, it’s going to come to this today here. How would you like to take care of that?

JENNIFER: Credit card, please.

CRAIG: Excellent. So, let me go ahead and run that through. Now, would you like me to email the receipt?

JENNIFER: I would.

CRAIG: Great. And you can see here it’s asking about Facebook. I think you’re going to love this and if you do we’d like you to share the love and tell your friends on Facebook.

JENNIFER: I will.

CRAIG: All right. Let’s get the appointment set up. Is there a particular day you would like our technician to come out?

JENNIFER: How about Friday the 23rd.

CRAIG: All right. We’ve got a few different time slots there. Let’s see who is available at 11 in the morning. That’s Albert.

JENNIFER: Do you have anything a little later? I like the added security of knowing what the gentleman who is going to come to my door looks like.

CRAIG: At Contoso we’re all about making you happy, Jennifer. So, thank you very much. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy that home theater system. We’ll be out to install it for you on the 23rd. And we look forward to you telling your friends all about that experience.

JENNIFER: Excellent.

CRAIG: So, Kirill, that was the dynamic retailing store of the future. Thank you very much.

KIRILL TATARINOV: What a great story. Thank you both. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Jennifer.

JENNIFER: Thank you, Kirill.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Amazing demo. And this is just one example, just one example of how solutions from Microsoft broadly, enables something that really couldn’t be done before. It enables this dynamic retailer, up-taking massive innovations designed for consumers and putting it into very specific business context. We feel really good about how that solution changes the market. We’re getting enormous positive feedback from worldwide, from the world of retail and people are truly embracing the solution we’re putting out there. It is revolutionary and it’s really helping those companies transfer.

Now, as the leader of Microsoft Business Solutions, every Convergence to me is sort of an opportunity to present a report card and also look ahead for things that are going to come to our customers. In reviewing our progress, getting ready for this event, I was really proud to see that everything that we promised, everything that we promised a year ago at Convergence 2011, we have delivered, whether it’s’ very specific product innovation, whether it’s a technology that we promised to put in front of you, or whether it’s a solution for specific industries, such a retail or manufacturing.

I’m truly excited about progress that we made with Dynamics AX 2012 and the launch that we did for you last fall. I’m truly excited about updates to NAV, GP and Excel. And I’m truly excited about amazing progress that we’re seeing in the marketplace with Dynamics CRM online and the solution that we’re giving our customers for sales force automation workload, customer care workload, and marketing management.

This year is not an exception. And it is my opportunity and my privilege to show you what is there to come and what solutions we’re going to give you and how we’re going to serve you in 2012. First and foremost, as we previously announced this year, we will update our CRM online service twice.

First, later this spring, we will provide Dynamics CRM online with capabilities that truly enable consumerized scenarios in the business. We will support a broad range of browsers in addition to Internet Explorer. And we will support a broad range of devices. It would be fair to say that whatever device people in your business want to use, they are going to be able to run sales force automation and customer care workloads through those devices connected to our Dynamics CRM backbone.

Then later this year we will update Dynamics CRM online again. And with that full update we will provide capabilities for social interaction and customer care scenarios. So, people can truly engage their customers through familiar social networking tools. And that’s essentially another very important part and step in our journey. Last year at Convergence 2011 we announced that the entire portfolio of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions is moving to the cloud.

Today I’m very proud to report to you that later this year two of our solutions, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, solutions that we’re announcing here at this event, will run on Windows Azure in an elastic Microsoft cloud, still delivered by our partners as we told you last year, our partners remain a very important part of our ecosystem, whether it’s private or public cloud. But, people are going to be able to consume those technologies in a very flexible, familiar way, running them on Azure cloud in elastic mode with the ability to access those technologies through Web user interface.

I’m very excited about those types of innovations. Of course, there is also wealth of functionality and capabilities that we will be adding to those solutions, business intelligence plays a very important, significant part in both GP 2013 and NAV 2013; we’re really helping our customers, we’re helping you to embrace the world of big data, and put it to work for the needs of your business, and those solutions will enable you to do that.

Also, later this year we will update Dynamics AX 2012 with an R2 release. Essentially, think of the pace of innovation that we are delivering. We first shipped Dynamic AX 2012 last fall; in September we had our launch activities. And in 18 months the solution will be updated already twice. We had Dynamics retail available, the solution that you saw earlier today. We had that solution shipped in January and before the end of the year. The R2 release will come out with very important, very exciting capabilities for human capital management, or payroll management, business intelligence, and a broad range of innovations for industries where we’re playing, service-oriented industries, retail, manufacturing, all of those very specific, concrete industry solutions will undergo a major step up.

And most importantly, this update will happen in a non-disruptive fashion. So, if you’re deploying Dynamics AX 2012 today you just stay the course and R2 comes in. It gives you more features, more functions, more scenarios on top of the platform, no re-implementations, no retesting, none of that would be required. And of course, we know Dynamics SL has a very loyal following between both our customers and partners, and we’re very excited that we will finish the year by updating Dynamics SL with R2 update, as well.

And the themes for that release remain constant. It is about business intelligence. It is about up-taking Microsoft innovation, just like we do across all of those products, with the latest technology coming from SQL Server, with the latest technology coming from Windows 8. All of that gets surfaced through those releases to our business customers. So, I’m truly excited about our road map, truly excited about where we’re heading, and I’m truly excited about the opportunity that we have to continue to serve those needs.

And of course as it relates to the cloud, you see two of our ERP products built on Windows Azure and we stay true to our commitments and we stay true to our promise and Dynamics AX in its next major release will also move to the elastic Microsoft cloud being moved natively into Windows Azure.

So, truly exciting innovation that is coming to you in 2012. But it really doesn’t stop there, and our innovation engine continues to run at full cylinders and we continue to execute and we continue to work very closely with people in your organizations and many of you, by the way, thank you for providing feedback and thank you for continuously telling us what else we could be doing for you, whether it’s a form of sort of formal setting that we have where we inquire our customers about the needs of their business, or informal feedback, email, the feedback flow that is coming to us has been phenomenal. And that’s combined with a very deliberate, forward thinking on where business is going truly helps us continue to deliver to your needs and continue to deliver experiences that transform your business.

What I would like to talk about how is innovation that we’re working on, essentially projecting forward what an immersive experience is going to look like in the future. And really putting it in context of a very specific business scenario in the area of management of consulting projects and really taking all of the broad innovation that is happening in Microsoft with Windows 8, with SQL Server 2012 and demonstrate to you how it will help you continue to transform the business, how it would help you to take simplicity and agility that we deliver in our products today to a completely new, unrivaled level.

So, I would like to ask Brad to join me here on stage, and we’re going to show you what that immersive experience is going to look like in the future. Brad, welcome.

BRAD: Thank you very much, Kirill. Hi, everybody. Hope you’re having fun. (Applause.) So I’m very excited to show you this Dynamics business application in this Windows 8 immersive experience. So, let me just talk to what Kirill said. The example that we’re using is I’m a project manager. So, the system is really proactively just giving me all of the key information that I need.

So, whether I need to find out what projects I’m actually managing, what resources I need, or what performance is actually happening in those projects, I’ve got it right at my fingertips in this fast and fluid environment in this desktop.

But because I know I have a lot to do, I’m thankful that the system is proactively telling me exactly what I’ve got today.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Of course, from the user experience, it really gives you what’s important at a glance.

BRAD: Exactly. Very simple. So, I want to get started. I want to add a work breakdown structure to this project. But, you know, I don’t have a lot of time. I know what the delivery date is and the budget, but I want to use past experience to really help build this project.

So, I import some projects that actually have the same kind of path that, in fact, the system is proactively telling me that this financial management one is actually pretty similar.

So, I get to go and look at that and basically import those different pieces of the project. And the system very quickly is telling me what tasks, what effort, and even has made sure that the dates are looking right. But, quickly, I see that I’ve got a problem here. I’m going to miss my system go-live date and I’m over budget. But, again, Dynamics is proactively telling me that there’s a few things that I might not need. So, as I look at this customer development add-on, it’s something that I don’t need for this project.

So, I select it. I actually can just simply remove that.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Just like that.

BRAD: Just like that. Getting me back on time, which I know you want me to be. So, essentially, the next piece is to get my resources because I have to go deliver this with people, people at the heart of it. So, I get this nice chart view so I can look at all the overlay of calendars for the tasks. And this is something, booking resources, that is typically very difficult.

But by going and actually having the system help me think about what competencies I need, what people and geographies and even how they’ve done on past projects, I can easily see what people I need to book. So, I’ve trusted the system so far, Kirill, so I’m going to select all of these, and let’s just add those resources.

So, very quickly, the system is now helping me look at all of these resources and put them into place.

Well, it looks pretty good to me, and just in the interest of time, I’m going to submit this to my boss for approval. So, we’ll see if this goes to him. And we’ll submit that. And I can go back to my Dynamics start page.

KIRILL TATARINOV: All right. I have my Windows 8 tablet here, as I’m playing Brad’s boss, I’m going into Microsoft Dynamics and this is the role that I have as the user of the system, and I have full visibility into what’s going on here, satisfaction of my customers, obviously very important. Not exactly what I’d want it to be, but more work to be done. And I can see that there is one approval that is sort of waiting in the queue for me.

I go here and it shows status pending and shows issues none, and shows all of the resources, and shows that it’s on budget and I can have full visibility of what Brad has just done. We will accept here, and it is now approved. And go back. All right, well, this is a work in progress, as you can see here, which I think there’s a good proof point that this is actually real stuff as we’re showing you.

But it does show me that the project has been approved, and now Brad can move forward and go about his business.

BRAD: Yeah. We can actually go show this to the customer, so we can actually go to that view.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Yeah. Another thing I think worth mentioning here since we are looking at that experience right now, we talked about sort of social interaction in the context of business application. As you can see here, I’m able to interact with the system and I get update from the system. I see what’s new, I see what’s going on, the system tells me what’s going on. But most important, I can interact with the project team, I can see what’s going on, and I can stay connected. And we’re going to take this modern way to communicate into a very specific business context.

You also see here Bing technologies that provides a map as it relates to customer information, another sort of very important way that we look at the cloud and opportunity for us to capture data from the cloud, and then bring it in the context of the very specific business.

BRAD: Exactly.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Pretty cool stuff.

BRAD: Thank you very much for approving that, Kirill.

KIRILL TATARINOV: All right, Brad.

BRAD: I hope you guys love that Dynamics experience in Windows 8. Thanks very much.

KIRILL TATARINOV: All right, thank you, Brad. (Applause.)

We’re working very closely with our partners, who are obviously going to be running the system to help all of you, our customers, implement your projects. We’re also working very closely with our own Microsoft consulting services group that is really interested in this technology and people who serve you and people who work with you every day are going to be able to become better professionals through this experience, through this innovation that we’re driving with Microsoft Dynamics. Really, really exciting stuff that is coming to you starting next year.

Convergence, also very special event for us to celebrate success with many of our customers. And it’s become a tradition that every Convergence, we celebrate success of customers who have achieved excellence and who are the best in their field, in their industry, in their approach, in the nine categories that we recognize our customers in. Later today, we have an opportunity to connect with that elite group of people who make their business into Dynamic Business with our solutions, and today I’m truly excited to show you this elite group. Let’s give this group a round of applause. (Applause.)

I’m also very excited to have an organization called DENTSPLY being an absolutely Dynamics business award winner. I had a chance to work with DENTSPLY very closely in the course of the last couple years. Today, they’re getting this prestigious award, and I want to give DENTSPLY a special round of applause for terrific work that they’re doing worldwide with Microsoft Dynamics. (Applause.)

This organization delivers dental supplies across 120 countries. They have manufacturing plants all over the world, and they’re both looking at replacing their system of record, but most importantly, they’re implementing system of engagement where they truly look into the future and they truly look how they can make their work better and how they can make their people better professionals through the usage of Microsoft Dynamics.

Today, we have a very unique opportunity to have Bill Schlageter, who is the CIO of DENTSPLY, to join me here on stage and talk a little bit about their experiences with Microsoft Dynamics. Bill, welcome, it’s so great to see you.

BILL SCHLAGETER: Kirill, thanks for having me. This is nice, thank you. (Applause.)

KIRILL TATARINOV: Well, congratulations on the award. We’re truly thrilled you guys are transforming your business in such an amazing way. And the discussions that you and I had over the years from the first meeting that we had about two and a half years ago in Philadelphia towards this tremendous milestone towards getting this award. But most importantly, I guess getting award inside your organization with terrific recognition your team is getting from your own customers.

Can you share a little bit with the broader group on sort of where you are, how have you achieved it, but most importantly, where are you taking all this?

BILL SCHLAGETER: Sure. So, as Kirill mentioned earlier, DENTSPLY International is a leading manufacturer of dental products for the professional market and now for healthcare. And our growth over the years has been fueled by a combination of product development, market development, and acquisition.

And up until about 2008 when we first met, our IT strategy had been very local. We invested in local solutions, we had local ERP systems, we had local invoice systems, local email systems. We had 75 email systems in 2008.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Wow.

BILL SCHLAGETER: Yeah, it was a lot. And while that initially proved to be a good model to get us penetration into the market, it ultimately became a barrier to our growth and to our success because we couldn’t well communicate across the organization, we couldn’t implement best business practices, and we really couldn’t operate effectively as a global enterprise.

So, working with you, we embarked upon an IT strategic review in 2008 which focused on really two components. One is to put in what you called earlier the private cloud, which was the suite of technologies that let our sites communicate and collaborate together, so that was SharePoint and Exchange and the rest.

And then we began to put Microsoft Dynamics into that ecosystem. And so today we’re running a single instance of Dynamics AX globally. We have it deployed in Asia and in Europe and in North America and soon to be in South America. So, far, it’s really changed the business and the sense that we can manage globally the things that we want to be global, like a global chart of accounts or global view to inventory, but still let us be agile and flexible the closer we get to the customer. So, we get the nice blend of the global control and the local flexibility.

KIRILL TATARINOV: And on the scale, you guys have over $2 billion in revenue right now.

BILL SCHLAGETER: $2.5 billion.

KIRILL TATARINOV: Pretty sizeable operation, and it is both the system of record that you’re implementing, plus all the operations.

BILL SCHLAGETER: And it’s a single global instance. So, it’s centralized in our corporate datacenter, it’s accessible off of our private cloud to all of our divisions around the world.

KIRILL TATARINOV: That’s terrific.

BILL SCHLAGETER: Yeah, it’s really neat stuff.

KIRILL TATARINOV: All right, Bill, well, thank you very much. I look forward to chatting more.

BILL SCHLAGETER: All right, thank you.

KIRILL TATARINOV: And congratulations on your award. Thank you very much.

BILL SCHLAGETER: Thank you. (Applause.)

KIRILL TATARINOV: I tell you, folks, as the leader of this group, as the leader of Microsoft Dynamics, I just could not be more excited as where we stand today with technology in the business and how we move into the future. And it’s really opportunity to change businesses, but most importantly, help organizations changes lives of people is what makes me the most excited and makes me a committed provider and committed vendor to all of you here.

Before we wrap up, I want to show you an example, another short video of organization that is truly transforming lives of people. This is the story of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, an organization that is implementing Dynamics to help children get better connected with opportunity. Let’s roll the video, please.

(Big Brothers Big Sisters Video Segment)

KIRILL TATARINOV: Thank you, Big Brothers Big Sisters. (Applause.) The winners are the children, isn’t that amazing, truly transformational stories, truly transformational experience.

Well, folks, Kevin talked to you about this year being a new era for Microsoft, being a new era for business, being a new era for Microsoft Dynamics and for Microsoft Business Solutions. We’re incredibly excited about where we are in business and we’re incredibly excited about the world of opportunity around us, and how we can get to this opportunity by working together.

This Convergence, Convergence 2012, in our view, will go into history as the Convergence where the world started to transform to become the world of Dynamic Business, the world of the future.

We have a packed agenda for you this week. I’m really excited about the opportunity you have here with us to learn about things we’re doing in the general session and individual connection.

Convergence is always an opportunity for all of you to connect and share your stories, and I truly encourage you to do that. And Convergence is also an opportunity for us to hear from you. So, please, don’t be shy, as I know you won’t be, in sharing your feedback and helping us continue to help you become a Dynamic Business.

There is a world of opportunity out there, let’s go take it. Thank you very much. Please enjoy the week and thank you, thank you, thank you for being our loyal customers and for your commitment to working with us. Enjoy the event. (Applause.)

END