Microsoft Dynamics C5
Microsoft Dynamics C5 is a business software from Microsoft.[1]
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Type | ERP |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Microsoft Dynamics C5 Official Site |
The product is part of the Microsoft Dynamics family, and intended to assist with finance, supply chain, project management, and analytics for small and medium-sized businesses. Microsoft Dynamics partners may have full access to the business logic source code, and it has a reputation as being easy to use and customize.
More than 85,000 licenses have been sold through a partner eco-system since 1995. In 2013 Microsoft released the third generation of C5 fully cloud-enabled.
History
C5 originates from the Damgaard Data Concorde C4 DOS-based business solution. C5 was launched in 1995 replacing C4. At the time of the release it was sold under the name Concorde C5 in Denmark and Arctos abroad.
The logic source code was named eXtended Application Language (XAL) and borrowed from a larger product called Microsoft Dynamics XAL, also originally a Concorde product from Damgaard, which was withdrawn from the market because it shared the same market segment as Microsoft Dynamics NAV formerly known as Navision. XAL, and to some extent C5, offered database and OS options for a number of non-Microsoft products like Oracle, DB2 and Linux. The name eXtended Application Language was chosen due to the fact that it was an enhancement of the logic source code used in products like Navision.
In connection with Microsoft XAL's retirement from the market the product was changed from targeting only small businesses to target medium-sized businesses too, so customers running on the discontinued Microsoft XAL could convert their product easily to C5, NAV or AX.
Microsoft Dynamics C5 was sold almost entirely in Denmark because Microsoft consider the competition among solutions sold to smaller companies to be strong.
In 2013, it was time to change again. Starting with the release of Dynamics C5 2014 the new generation of C5 shares the same platform and roadmap as Dynamics NAV. All capabilities of Dynamics NAV, except a by licensing reduced set of application features, are available in the new generation of Dynamics C5.
Looking at the legacy C5 still serves a no. of medium-sized business Microsoft today offers a license migration path from the legacy C5 to Dynamics NAV. Further Dynamics partners offers migration packages enabling legacy C5 customers to migrate to either the new C5 or NAV. The C5 2012 version will be available for resale until January 5, 2017.
Features
The C5 application comes installed with all modules. The customer can unlock a module by purchasing a license key. Like with all Dynamics products only Dynamics partners are allowed to re-sell the license keys.
The first version of C5 was sold in 1995. Today you have supported versions and unsupported versions. In January 2010 Microsoft changed their trade agreements so customers no longer can expand the unsupported versions with more database capacity or users.
Supported versions include Microsoft Dynamics C5 2012 (until January 9, 2019), Microsoft Dynamics C5 2014, Microsoft Dynamics C5 2015 and Microsoft Dynamics C5 2016.
References
- Microsoft Dynamics C5, Microsoft (in Danish)
