Newly awarded Microsoft MVP Steve Mordue has never shied away from the challenging issues that partners face both in their day to day work and in long term business planning. A veteran of the Salesforce ecosystem who transitioned his consulting business to Dynamics CRM several years ago, Mordue now runs RapidStart CRM, an ISV that offers tools that improve user adoption of Dynamics 365.

As we move deeper into 2017, Dynamics 365 professionals are awaiting the next phase of the suite’s position in the CRM market, namely with its planned SMB, or “Business Edition,” sales and marketing apps. Once a skeptic, Mordue says he has been won over by Microsoft’s efforts on the buildout of these apps so far. But questions remain, among them:

• How will partners and customers handle around the dozens of CRM-related SKUs related to Dynamics 365 apps and plan?
• What newly interested Microsoft partners, especially those selling Office 365 and Azure, will do to adopt D365
• Where Microsoft is able to get an edge against Salesforce today in terms of features or hype
• Does AppSource still has a lot of runway to build momentum with ISVs?
• Can Dynamics 365 Business Edition sales and marketing compete with SMB sales and marketing cloud solutions?
• How should partners transition from previous generation services to next generation? (Hint: vertical focus)