April Fool: Sad Day in Dynamics GP (Great Plains) Community

David Meego - Click for blog homepageHi everyone,

It is a sad day today.  I have been thinking about this day for a long time and have been dreading writing this blog post.

As many of you know I have been involved with the Great Plains world since 1994 and Dynamics v2.0.  The company I was with at the time, Sequel Technology, actually looked at version 1.0, but decided not to get involved with the initial release. I learnt Dexterity v2.04 in Melbourne, Australia when Kevin Kidder made his first international trip and conducted the first Dexterity Fundamentals class outside of Fargo (quite a long way outside).

I spent a total of five years as a Director of Sequel Technology, a time which includes highlights as presenting Cross Dictionary Dexterity Development techniques at the 1998 Great Plains World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), and winning the 1997 Great Plains Technical Innovation Award for Named Printers (which was later sold to Great Plains and is now part of core code).

In 1999, I made a very hard decision to leave Sequel Technology and created my own business, Winthrop Dexterity Consultants.  I decided to focus on development of products and custom development and to no longer be directly involved with sales and implementation. My concerns were unfounded as the business was a great success, with achievements such as developing most of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) implementation for Australia while on contract to Great Plains Australia, and developing the Omni Tools and Omni Price products, which were later sold (Omni Security and Omni Field Security to Microsoft and the rest of the modules a few years later to Rockton Software).

In 2001, in conjunction with the sale of what became Advanced Security and Field Level Security, I joined Microsoft.  Initially, I continued to maintain the Advanced Security, Field Level Security and Business Activity Statement (Australian GST) code, but these were later handed over to dedicated development teams.  My role in Microsoft has shifted from a development focus, to a consulting focus and now to a support focus.  All the time, I have continued to leverage my development background to provide better results for the teams I have worked with. This can be seen with the "pet projects" I have been involved in such as the Developing for Dynamics GP blog, Menus for Visual Studio Tools and the Support Debugging Tool.

I have really enjoyed my time in the Dynamics GP (Great Plains) community and find today a very sad occasion.

So, with great trepidation, I must announce that I still have no plans to move to Fargo, it's just too cold in Winter, floods in the Spring, is hot and humid in the Summer with giant mosquitoes and has Fall instead of Autumn. I think I will just stay in Perth and keep doing my job.

David

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