On May 1st, 2002, I walked through the doors of Navision in the Offices in Vedbæk for the first time. A few days earlier rumors had started that Microsoft was going to acquire Navision, but things weren’t settled yet.

The Acquisition was formally announced on May 7th and was finalized on July 11, 2002, so my 20-year anniversary as a Microsoft employee is on July 11th, but for me, May 1st will always be the date where I started working with ERP software.

I have worked with a lot of amazing people on a ton of amazing stuff, and I am still as passionate about what I do as I have ever been.

Steve Jobs once said that we’re here to put a dent in the universe. Well, I might not have put a dent in the universe, but I definitely put a dent in the way Business Central developers are working on a daily basis.

While the Microsoft mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, I can safely say that I have and am empowering developers and partners on the planet to achieve more, trying to do my part…

There are a lot of memorable moments during the last 20 years, but the one that stands out is from Convergence in Munich 2006, where Bill Gates talked about Business Solutions and had a demo of a Shop Floor control performed on stage by our GM Darren Laybourn. After the keynote, the leader of Business Solutions, Satya Nadella, called Bill over to meet and greet. Humbled to have been in the company of these great people who both then and now has really transformed how people work and how people use IT.

Nobody knows what the future brings, but I will do my utmost to make the most out of it…

Thanks for all the fish

Freddy