As you probably know, when Microsoft purchased Great Plains Software - the whole strategy for Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise line was changed. Initial GPS strategy was to maintain DB platform independence - via it's C-written engine Dexterity, based on the believe that C programming language is platform independent. So - Great Plains was running on MS SQL Server, Ctree (Faircom - if you remember 1995-96 Macintosh era), Pervasive SQL (Btrieve). Microsoft obviously had no plan to keep this multiplatform capability and Great Plains was optimized to MS SQL Server and with the introduction of MSDE - the need to keep entry level Dynamics on Ctree/Btrieve disappeared.

Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, later renamed to Microsoft Business Solutions was sending multiple signals to Dynamics customers to migrate to SQL Server, later on to upgrade to Great Plains Standard on MSDE. Recently it promoted all the clients who own Great Plains on Ctree/Pervasive - so now they technically own so called Great Plains Standard. All they need to do is pay for Migration (around k$3 + consulting fee to whoever your MBS VAR is).

Unfortunately MBS did several rough turns in the process of this migration from ctree/Pervasive to SQL/MSDE.

Until early 2004 you could see support expiration date for Great Plains 7.5 on Ctree/Pervasive was July, 31, 2005. In about April, 2004 - Microsoft roughly changed it to December 31, 2004. This actually exposed all the clients with regulation-related modules (such as US Payroll - where you rather do not risk with printing W2s without support) to serious problems

Clients who migrated to Great Plains standard are now in the feeling that they paid for something that is free now. See above - all the low price GP clientele now technically owns GP Standard

Ctree/Pervasive clients with high volume of employees count in GP Payroll/HR now have to cut it to 500 employees due to the cap for GP Standard. You can imagine frustration, especially due to the fact that a lot of mid-size and big companies were running very cheap Dynamics on Ctree for just Payroll/W2 filing. This was a very nice alternative to products like Abra HR - not any more.

What to do. Well, if you plan to stay with GP - the only alternative is to migrate to MSDE. Contact your MBS VAR (or call us directly: 1-866-528-0577). You will be given Migration Tool quote - then install MSDE and Great Plains with exactly the same accounts structure that you have on Pervasive/Ctree. Tune Migration Tool, select all the tables in all the modules, click the button and wait a few hour - and you are in the SQL World!

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, Illinois, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and having locations in multiple states and internationally www.albaspectrum.com, he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com

akarasev@albaspectrum.com