The application, due to ship on Dec. 19, is the successor to the company's flagship Great Plains suite. The software has been tweaked to better utilize Microsoft's desktop, portal, business intelligence and development technologies, the company said.

Paulette Volf, senior accounting project manager at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, said she plans to implement the new software early next year to take advantage of its enhanced procurement and requisitioning capabilities.

The orchestra now runs Great Plains 8.0 accounts payable, fixed assets and general ledger software. Volf said GP 9.0 will be enabled with a security access feature to help cut down on errors because it will ensure that managers making requisitions will see only relevant ordering codes.

The Dynamics GP software is part of Microsoft's so-called Project Green, which will ultimately create a unified set of application software with a common code base and interface. Microsoft began to detail Project Green, now called Dynamics, last spring at its Convergence 2005 user conference but has not disclosed a completion date.

The company will follow up with similar updated versions of applications, including Microsoft CRM and Axapta, over the next few months.