A week of compelling stories. AX on Azure, NAV Extensions excitement and dismay, the Common Data Model preview for PowerApps, and why is marketing automation sitting on the shelf?

Among this week’s topics:

• Microsoft’s update to New Dynamics AX, available from LCS, which adds the use of Azure Resource Manager for managing deployments, offers improvements to the user interface, Office integration, analytics, security, and integrations.
• Marketing automation’s “dirty little secret” – could it be its absence? Or disuse?
• A look at CRMUG Summit 2016RMUG Summit 2016, in which CRMUG Director Tony Stein promises a “by-user, for-user” feel, and a touch of Convergence.
• Debate on Extensions grows, in which experts are split on the wisdom of Microsoft’s choice; their moods run from excitement to resignation.
• The Common Data Model (CDM) preview for PowerApps, CDM being Microsoft's new Azure-based business application model and storage mechanism for PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and Power B.
• Two interesting case studies, being the global nonprofit Partners In Health using a NAV-based solution to manage the complexities of that vertical; and the Portland Trail Blazers using Dynamics CRM to retain and upsell ticketholders.