In his keynote address today at Convergence 2006 EMEA, the first Convergence event in EMEA, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates discussed a leading challenge facing organizations today: how to help companies maximize productivity by helping them bridge “the last mile” between personal productivity software and their back-end business systems. Gates highlighted how Microsoft Dynamics™ business management solutions are combining Microsoft® software and online services to make business applications more usable and businesses more productive.

“Business applications should make companies more agile, but in practice this often isn’t the case,” Gates said. “While a decade’s worth of software innovation has transformed the workplace, linking the work people do every day directly into business processes is still too complicated. Microsoft Dynamics solutions connect people and processes so businesses can empower their employees to work with greater speed, effectiveness and intelligence.”

In his keynote speech Gates also outlined the vision for Microsoft Dynamics in the “Live” era that takes business productivity to the next level by deeply integrating Microsoft Dynamics and the Microsoft Office system with online services that accelerate user adoption and maximize the value people get from their business applications. Key elements of this vision follow: