CRM and ERP will be provided on Windows Azure cloud

Microsoft provided near- and longer-term updates about its ERP and CRM wares for its ERP and CRM customers and partners .

On the near-term front,  the next version of its Dynamics AX ERP product (codenamed AX 6, and now known officially as Dynamics AX 2012) to be released to manufacturing in August 2011. A beta of AX 2012 is out as of April 4.

The Dynamics SL 2011 ERP product is now generally available, as is the on-premises version of Dynamics CRM 2011. And Dynamics GP 2010 R2, another of its ERP products, will be generally available starting May 1, 2011.

Longer-term,  the next major releases of the cloud versions of its Dynamics ERP and CRM products will be hosted on Windows Azure.