As early as 2003, research began with the Dynamics NAV development team, planning moves to further enhance NAV and take advantage of various parts of the Microsoft product line. Goals were defined to increase integration with products such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook. Goals were also set to leverage the functional capabilities of Visual Studio Code and SQL Server, among others. All the while, there was a determination not to lose the strength and flexibility of the base product.
NAV 2009 was released in late 2008, NAV 2013 in late 2012, followed by NAV 2015 in late 2014. NAV 2017 was released in October 2016. The biggest hurdles to the new technologies have been cleared. A new user interface, the Role Tailored Client, was created as part of this renewal. NAV was tightly integrated with Microsoft's SQL Server and other Microsoft products, such as Office, Outlook, and SharePoint. Development is more integrated with Visual Studio Code and is more .NET compliant. The product is becoming more open and, at the same time, more sophisticated, supporting features such as web services access, web and tablet clients, integration of third-party controls, RDLC and Word-based reporting, and so on.
Microsoft continues to invest in, enhance, and advance Business Central. More new capabilities and features are yet to come, with the aim of building on the successes of the past. We all benefit from their work.