Dynamics Axapta History

Axapta History


Damgaard

Development of Axapta began in 1983 at Danish company Damgaard Data A/S. The software was mainly targeted at the European market, though the North American market grew rapidly following the release of Axapta 2.1 in 2000.

Version	Date	Description
Axapta 1.0	Mar 1998	The first version of Axapta was released in the US and in Denmark in March 1998 by Danish company Damgaard A/S. It supported both Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database servers. Notable features were financial, trade, inventory management, logistics and production.
Axapta 1.5	Nov 1998	The second major version of Axapta was released in Norway, Sweden, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and the European Union in November 1998.
Axapta 2.0	Jul 1999	The third major version of Axapta was released to customers in July 1999. Notable new features were the Project Accounting module, Warehouse Management (WMS), External OLAP, Option Pack concept, ActiveX support, COM-connector and an early release of the Axapta Object Server which allowed offloading of some operations from the clients onto a separate server.
Axapta 2.1	Jan 2000	This release stemmed from market demands from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. It was the fourth major version of Axapta and was released in January 2000. The most notable new feature was the addition of a Web tool called the Customer Self-Service (CSS) which is the precursor to today's Enterprise Portal. With Axapta 2.1 SP3 (Service Pack 3), the AOS (Axapta Object Server) was introduced making Axapta the first fully three-tier ERP-system in the market.

Navision-Damgaard

Following the merger of the two Danish companies Navision and Damgaard, Axapta was to be known as Navision Damgaard Axapta for versions 2.5 and 3.0 (up until 3.0 SP5).

Version	Date	Description
Axapta 2.5	Dec 2000	As the fifth major release, Axapta 2.5 brought with it a complete web applications development environment, the Project module, Banking and OLAP. It was released first to Denmark, Austria and United Kingdom in December 2000.
Axapta 2.5 Market Pack	Oct 2001	This market pack was released for Axapta 2.5 in October 2001 in France and Italy. This new application layer contained the Customer Relationship Management module (CRM or Marketing Automation), Commerce Gateway and Product Builder (both Client-side and CSS-side (Web)).

 Microsoft (current)

Microsoft acquired Navision Damgaard during the summer of 2002. Navision Damgaard Axapta was first renamed to Microsoft Business Solutions Axapta, then to Microsoft Dynamics AX for versions 3.0 SP6, 4.0 and 2009.

Version	Date	Description
Axapta 3.0	Oct 2002	The sixth major Axapta release brought with it the Microsoft Axapta Enterprise Portal, new intercompany collaboration functionality, actualized and rebuilt user security and system configuration, expanded geographical reach (more countries), demand planning and enhanced partner productivity tools.
Dynamics AX 4.0	Mar 2006	The seventh major Axapta release brought with it an updated look and feel. As the first version that Microsoft was involved in from the beginning it attempted to integrate better with existing Microsoft technologies. For example, the AOS became a true Windows service, a .Net business connector was provided, CLR interoperability was introduced and XML data exchanges were supported through a set of code classes (Application Integration Framework), full Unicode support was introduced and a new Service Management module.
Dynamics AX 2009	Jun 2008	Originally named AX 4.1, later renamed to AX 5.0 (and finally AX 2009), the eighth major release of Axapta brings with it yet more improvements to the UI. This new version adds role-based concepts to both the Enterprise Portal and Windows clients, support for timezones (UTC), a new Site inventory dimension, and Enterprise Portal development through Visual Studio projects.
Dynamics AX 2012	Aug 2011	Known as AX 6 during development, AX 2012 was released in August 2011. It included improvements to the user interface, general application and developer enhancements, and added industry-specific solutions for Process Manufacturing, Professional Services, and Public Sector organizations. The release also included support for SharePoint 2010, Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2.
Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack	Feb 2012	Released  after AX 2012, the feature pack added a Retail solution in addition to the previously released industry-specific solutions.
Dynamics AX 2012 R2	Q4 2012	Announced at the Convergence 2012 conference, AX 2012 R2 is due to ship in late 2012 and is expected to include enhanced support for Microsoft SQL Server 2012.