At Directions EMEA 2022 in Hamburg, I meet with Mike Morton, VP at Microsoft for an interview about Business Central, check it out:
In this interview recorded at Directions EMEA 2022 in Hamburg, Erik sits down with Mike Morton, Vice President of SMB for Business Applications at Microsoft — effectively the head of Business Central. They discuss Mike’s background, the significance of having a dedicated VP for Business Central, the product’s strategic direction, investment in the application layer, and advice for people looking to build a career in the Business Central ecosystem.
Meet Mike Morton — The First VP of Business Central
Mike Morton’s official title is Vice President of SMB for Business Applications, which makes him effectively the head of Business Central. His role also encompasses some of Microsoft’s older legacy products like SL and GP, as well as figuring out how to bring Power Platform, Sales, Customer Service, and other capabilities into the SMB segment more successfully.
Notably, Mike is the first VP that Business Central has ever had. As he explains, this isn’t just a personal milestone — it’s a reflection of the product’s growth and success:
“Microsoft has maybe a fair number of VPs — it’s a big company. But there’s typically a scope that says in order to have a VP for a certain product area, it needs to be a business of a certain size. The growth that we’ve seen over the last couple of years — it’s fantastic to see, and a real sign of Microsoft’s commitment and bet on Business Central.”
No Major Reorganization — A Deliberate Choice
Erik notes that it’s common at Microsoft for a new boss to trigger a reorganization within the first three months. Mike’s approach was different. When he came aboard roughly two and a half years before this interview, he inherited a strong team with a solid mission and direction:
“One of the big advantages of a reorg is that it helps you essentially reset the strategy and get people thinking in different directions. But I really wanted to execute on the existing plan — let’s make cloud a reality, let’s address the top issues, let’s figure out how we can expand the existing vision of Business Central.”
While there have been tactical changes beneath the surface, the fundamental vision and direction have remained consistent — something Mike sees as important for ecosystem stability. Products that zig and zag too much in their core focus can be dangerous for the partner community, though staying the same for too long carries its own risks.
From SharePoint and Office to Business Central
Mike’s career at Microsoft has been extensive. He was one of the original founders of SharePoint, working on it for about 10 years from conception through to becoming a major product. He then moved into the Office organization, specifically focused on bringing Office to the cloud with Office 365. His team built the web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as key services like co-authoring.
This background has proven valuable for Business Central in two key ways:
- Cross-product connections: Dynamics historically hasn’t had as deep a relationship with other Microsoft groups like Office, Teams, and Azure. Mike’s extensive experience in Office — where collaboration across teams is the norm — has helped bridge those gaps.
- User experience standards: Office has a very high bar for customer experience and usability. Mike wants to bring that same mindset to Dynamics: “We don’t want to be viewed as a thing that you have to go and read a long manual before you can start using. We want to think about having a product that people actually enjoy using — delightful, easy to learn.”
Business Central’s Place Within Microsoft
Erik asks whether the rest of Microsoft truly understands how sophisticated and complicated ERP is. Mike acknowledges the natural tendency within large organizations for teams to underestimate the complexity of other products:
“If you’re somebody that worked on compilers for years, you think apps are simple. If you’re somebody that worked on Word for years, you think Power is simple and apps are complicated. There’s always a little bit of that.”
However, there’s been a significant shift in understanding the importance of business apps to Microsoft’s broader strategy. Microsoft recognizes that if it only provides very horizontal tools like Windows and Office, other companies could come in and capture the business process value chain. The real competitive advantage lies in serving the entire customer experience — from productivity tools and devices to business processes and connectivity.
A Lean and Efficient Team
The Business Central team is notable for the breadth of what it owns relative to its size. The team is responsible for the application experience, the platform, deployment, management, and even their own language, compiler, and developer tools. Mike draws a parallel to Office:
“The number of people that work on Word — the Word team — you might be surprised how relatively small it is. But then there are huge amounts of people that work on shared code for things like spelling and grammar, layout, toolbars, menus, etc.”
Business Central leverages shared resources as well, but perhaps in a less direct way. The team’s leanness is both a constraint and a strength — it forces efficiency in decision-making and prevents the team from reinventing the wheel, encouraging them to leverage shared code within Microsoft and from the open source community.
Three Strategic Priorities for the Application
Erik raises a point that resonates deeply with the community: for the last several years, much of the focus has been on building a world-class platform and cloud service, and during that period the application itself may not have received all the attention it deserved. Mike fully agrees and outlines three key initiatives:
1. App Architecture and Modularization
While Business Central has extensive events and extensibility, the current approach has its limits. Mike references the ever-growing pattern of “on before line 675” and “on after line 675” events, noting that continuing down this path indefinitely will make updates increasingly difficult for both Microsoft and partners.
“We want to make sure we have a great modularized architecture that goes for the long run. I don’t want to scare people — we’re not going to come up with some entirely new extension interface overnight. But we actually have some pretty good ideas on how we can take the system we have, evolve it, and over time make it much more robust.”
2. Customization Without Code
Core scenarios like adding a field to a view, creating a new field, or changing how data is sorted or grouped should be achievable by end users or consultants without hiring a professional developer. The goal is to reduce the barrier to common customizations and empower more people across the partner and customer ecosystem.
3. Making the App Great
The third priority is perhaps the most fundamental: investing directly in the application itself. While Business Central is competitive today, Mike sees significant room for improvement:
“We think the experience — going through module by module, whether that’s existing modules or potentially new ones — and really thinking about what’s right for the next year, two years, five years, ten years down the line… that’s maybe the most core part of the question. Actually investing in the app itself, in the core logic, in the core experience.”
Mike emphasizes that these three initiatives are deeply interconnected — the right architecture, the right balance of responsibilities between Microsoft, partners, and customers, and the right out-of-the-box investments all need to work together.
Advice for Young Professionals: How to Get Involved
For those looking to be part of the Business Central world, Mike highlights several paths:
- Join the partner ecosystem: Particularly focus on building reusable horizontal or vertical solutions.
- Contribute to open source: Microsoft is open-sourcing a significant portion of the Business Central application. Contributing to the core product is a real option for ambitious developers.
- Build your reputation through contributions: Open source contributions are a fantastic way to build your professional reputation. As Mike puts it: “These days, your GitHub contributions might be more important than what you put on your CV.”
- Consider Microsoft directly: While hiring cycles vary, Microsoft does look at open source contributions when evaluating candidates. The company has also been known to make IP acquisitions, which is another potential path.
Conclusion
This interview offers a rare and candid look into the leadership perspective behind Business Central. The key takeaways are encouraging: Microsoft is committed to the product (as evidenced by the VP-level investment), the strategic direction is intentionally stable, and the focus is shifting back toward application-level improvements — better architecture, more no-code customization, and genuine investment in making the core application great. For anyone in the Business Central ecosystem, whether as a developer, consultant, or partner, these signals point to a healthy and growing platform with significant opportunities ahead.
