Knights of GP

Riding into the GP Sunset with the Knights of GP

Time to pull on our leathers, kick over the engines, and roll out with the Knights of GP — chasing that last GP sunset down the open road. I give the branding for Knights of GP ten out of ten for effort, including the video.

Tonight I stayed up late into the night to sit in on the “Fireside Chat – What if You Could Stay on GP Beyond 2031?” webinar with Njevity (who are initially driving this), promoting the concept of The Knights of GP — that is a community co-op effort between customers, partners, consultants, and ISVs to support and enhance Dynamics GP beyond the date that Microsoft ends official support.

Mike McPhilomy, Paige Horne, and Chris Dobkins hosted the chat wearing matching co-ordinated branded leather waistcoats (which I’m hoping will be available as merch in the future, tbh ;) ).

What is the Knights of GP?

The goal is to bring together a large, multi-skilled community of members — with GP customers paying membership to the Knights.
That membership would be used to fund and provide support and enhancements to GP going beyond Microsoft’s end of support.

There is a good possibility that official support may be extended again as we get nearer to 2031.

This approach would allow the community to make changes to GP should regulatory requirements shift or new technologies arise that necessitate updates.

ISVs and Product Longevity

ISVs will continue to enhance the product, offering solutions to keep GP running.
The Knights would likely provide a third-party dictionary to deliver override functionality in places where old GP features need adapting to meet new requirements — much like how ISVs extend GP today.

It was also noted that GP rarely breaks due to Windows updates, which might be thanks to past testing under official support. Time will tell how that holds up without Microsoft’s oversight.

GP base product remains the same

There will be no modifying the GP base source code, as there’s no access to it.
All future changes will need to extend or override existing functionality, just as ISV add-ons do today.

Licensing issue

One major concern remains: licensing.
Since licensing will end with Microsoft, that may cause challenges.

To enable features and users in GP, you need licence keys — and if companies want to add more user counts, they could find themselves snookered.

It was mentioned that they would have ideally launched the Knights closer to the end of support.
However, customers need clarity now due to the pressure they are under from partners and internal business teams, with the “cliff edge” of 2031 fast approaching.

That urgency explains why this launch feels a little unprepared — but the key takeaway is that the Knights will be there for customers after GP’s official end of life.

Next Steps for the Community

• Knights will be Community building.
• Getting the message out there that support will be available for GP in the future.
• Holding and retaining archives of GP information as online sources begin to disappear.
• If you are a customer with custom GP modifications, negotiate to get your source code now from your partner — it may become harder later. Protect your system by owning the code that drives it.

Most ISVs have confirmed they will continue supporting their products, as it remains a revenue stream for them, and may even be simpler for them to support if the base product stops changing with new releases.

Staying Supported

Customers should keep paying enhancements until they reach the GP version (18.12) supporting Windows Server 2028 and SQL Server 2028, which will effectively buy them up to a decade of life on that Microsoft supported platforms.

Much more info here:
🔗 Winthrop DC – The Knights of GP: Join the Fireside Chat

And sign up for updates here:
🔗 Njevity – Dynamics GP Beyond 2031

Community action

Although we are still a few years away, businesses need to plan ahead now, yet some aspects of the Knights plan require further clarification. But isn't it great to see a community rally together to solve a problem! There are areas around this concept that spark questions, then perhaps companies just need to understand and accept the risks, once they have been fully defined.

It was stated that GP has rarely experienced issues following Windows or SQL updates. While this is true, it is important to remember that in the past GP has benefited from being a Microsoft supported product, with updates fully tested for compatibility. My concern is what happens once that safety net is gone. For example, a Windows update could be pushed out overnight and unexpectedly break GP’s fragile rendering engine or break printing functionality. Without official support, a business could suddenly, overnight find GP practically unusable. Workarounds could perhaps be developed should this happen, but in the meantime company operations still need to continue. So this is representing a significant and perhaps unacceptable risk to many companies.

Licensing also remains a major challenge. Businesses that want to adopt a new module or simply grow their user base face real barriers going forward.

Hosting GP on a platform such as PowerGP Online can help mitigate several technical risks. By running GP through virtual desktops, in a server bubble, businesses gain a more controlled and stable environment, with additional layers of protection against disruptive OS updates and infrastructure changes. This approach does not solve every problem, but it does meaningfully reduce exposure to the most severe risks. For many companies, that may be “good enough” to buy time for a planned migration and as more information emerges, some of today concerns may evaporate away.

The downside, however, is that not every Microsoft Partner has built, nor have the capability or desire to build a dedicated, isolated hosting platform for GP. I’m interested to hear how other GP partners feel about the idea of handing over clients to be hosted and managed by Njevity on the GPOnline platform. While this means giving up some control, it may be preferable to losing customers entirely. A noticeable percentage of GP users are not choosing Microsoft’s own path to BC they are moving to other ERP systems like Acumatica, Epicor, SAP Business One, or Infor. That customer loss is a real danger during this transition period, so retaining them for as long as possible might be an attractive strategy.

From what I see, though, most partners are taking a very assertive stance: pushing customers to leave GP and adopt an ERP solution that the partner already support, bringing with it new implementation fees, ongoing consulting work, and often significantly higher annual support and licensing costs. GP has been excellent value for money, and that becomes very clear when you compare it to the alternatives in today’s market.

Finally

It was super exciting to hear — separate to the Knights initiative — that they are developing an MCP server over the top of the Connect product.
I can not wait to see how that turns out.

Ride safe, Knights.