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Microsoft Announces Availability of Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains 8.0 for Australian businesses

Coolum, Queensland – At its annual Australia and New Zealand Partner Conference, Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains® 8.0, a cross-industry financial management solution for Australian businesses.

“This is a milestone release for Great Plains because as well as offering more than 120 product enhancements it also provides a new interface similar to Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003,” said Claire Kennedy, Microsoft Australia product manager for Microsoft Great Plains. “The familiar, easy to use interface and other key enhancements are a direct result of Microsoft’s commitment to development based on customer feedback. Together, the innovations and usability will help customers streamline processes and improve overall business productivity.”

Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 delivers improved usability, richer functionality for distribution and project accounting and improved analytics. Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 provides customers with a more comprehensive view of inventory that allows tighter control over the distribution process. Time and effort spent on core accounting tasks can be reduced with the ability to use existing transactions as the basis for new ones, as well as to quickly void, delete, correct or change journal entries while maintaining full audit control.

“We have shown customers Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 at our InTouch user group as well as at the online seminar and feedback is overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic,“ said Michael Foertsch, Professional Advantage, an Australian supplier of business management solutions. “Customers can’t wait to get their hands on the product and remark that the new look and feel is intuitive. We are very excited on the prospects for Microsoft Great Plains 8.0.”

Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 offers enhanced integration with other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal 2.5 and Microsoft Office. Microsoft Business Portal 2.5 released to manufacturing on 16 August 2004, further enables employee productivity with new modules for online requisition management, time and expense entry and approval, and electronic delivery of sales documents to customers. Together, Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 enable users to build template-based communications in Microsoft Word or easily attach maps and directions for sales, delivery and service call routes with Microsoft MapPoint®.

Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 will ship with Microsoft Business Solutions for Analytics-FRx® 6.7, which includes four major enhancements: a new FRx Report Manager module, improvements to the FRx Currency Translation module, tighter integration with Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and upgraded support for the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) 2.0 taxonomy. These reporting options provide businesses with greater control of the financial reporting process and better financial visibility. Availability Microsoft Great Plain 8.0 is immediately available in Australia and New Zealand. Interested customers should visit http://www.microsoft.com/australia/m...s/default.aspx to find a certified partner for information about cost and deployment. Microsoft Business Portal 2.5 is scheduled for release later this year.