First the good news: the parties are on at Microsoft's new Envision conference in early April in New Orleans. If you can't party in the Big Easy, why attend? Two major regular events of Microsoft's Convergence and Worldwide Partner Conference are planned—Rock N' Rave and the Randy and Andy Party. Envision will be held April 4-6 and that's nine weeks away and hmm, no speakers have been announced other than executives from Microsoft. Reports are there are no Dynamics break-out sessions planned and the agenda so far simply shows there will be breakouts in three categories: Business trends and themes; Industry trends; and Leadership in key business roles.

Shareholders of UXC, an Australian company with diverse technology holdings, have overwhelmingly approved the company's purchased by Computer Sciences Corp. The vote was held this week. The primary operation of note in the United States is UXC Eclipse, which markets Dynamics AX and makes this one of the notable events in the ongoing consolidation in the AX market. The purchase is valued at approximately $403 million.

As bodies continue to fly at Sage, one thing caught my eye on LinkedIn. The title for long-time executive Connie Certusi has changed from VP, general manager to VP, managing director on her page. "We're moving to standard titles across the globe and the new precise title is 'Managing Director.' The overall role is basically the same though," she wrote in a response to an email question. Well, MD is often the person running a geography.

Microsoft's decision to end Convergence and replace it with a conference called Envision has set a lot of parts in motion. Overall, Envision, aimed at business leaders, is a bit of a Dynamics AX show with those catering to three other ERP packages not pleased. The AX crew seems happy, although one report that the number of user attendees is down sharply, won't please anybody if true. Josh Richards, marketing director for Merit Solutions, notes, "We do believe we will have more access to, and higher quality conversations with, organization's C, VP, and director levels," he says. He also reminds people Envision is not a Dynamics-centric conference.