• Illustration: Duet Roadmap

Plans for a major version of Duet in 2008 have been dropped. Duet is a jointly developed Microsoft-SAP product that lets workers access the SAP suite of business applications using Outlook and other Office applications. Some features targeted for Duet 2.0 will appear in an interim Duet 1.5 release in 2008, with the remainder deferred to Duet 3.0, expected no earlier than 2009. Although the change delays several interesting features, it should help Microsoft and SAP ship Duet 3.0 on time. This is important for partners, because 3.0 will be the first release that supports custom Duet solutions.

Broader, Simpler SAP Access

Duet enables users of Outlook and other Office suite applications to work with SAP's suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. The product makes SAP data and processes, historically the domain of back-office specialists and managers, accessible to other workers in an organization, which helps reduce their reliance on specialists to complete day-to-day tasks. Duet's first version focuses on employee self-service applications: for example, it includes a time management application that lets workers enter time worked directly into SAP applications from Outlook. In future releases, Microsoft and SAP will expand Duet's support for business processes such as sales and SCM.

Duet has seen solid adoption since its release in June 2006, with more than 250 customers purchasing more than 400,000 licenses, according to Microsoft and SAP. Although this represents a tiny fraction of Office's estimated 400 million users and SAP's almost 40,000 customers, at roughly US$125 per license, it is nonetheless a substantial new revenue source for both companies.

Roadmap Continues to Evolve

Microsoft's and SAP's most recent take on Duet's roadmap amends announcements at Sapphire 2007, SAP's semiannual customer conference, which was last held in Apr. 2007. (See the illustration "Duet Roadmap".)

Changes announced in Oct. 2007 include the following:

Duet 2.0 canceled. Some features planned for Duet 2.0, which was originally scheduled for late 2008, will be brought forward and included in Duet 1.5. Among others, these include expanded language support and a Meeting Planning application that will allow workers to use Outlook to reserve conference rooms managed by SAP. The remainder of the features planned for Duet 2.0, which included SharePoint integration and several new applications to support business processes, will be deferred to Duet 3.0.

Duet 1.5 will ship in 2008. Duet 1.5, originally planned for mid-2007, will be delayed to the second quarter of 2008, following a customer preview program slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2007. Along with inclusion of some features originally scoped for Duet 2.0, Duet 1.5 will integrate with Microsoft's recently released Communications Server 2007 unified communications platform, allowing users to view colleagues' presence information from within Duet task panes and communicate using Communications Server's instant messaging, voice and video calling, and conferencing features. Following its release, Microsoft and SAP also plan to release additional functionality for Duet 1.5, including applications for event and project management. However, the ship vehicle and timing for the supplemental applications has not been disclosed.

Technology overhaul in Duet 3.0. Duet 3.0 will introduce several major architectural changes. Among other changes, the product will no longer use Microsoft's Information Bridge Framework—a development platform for building Word, Excel, and Outlook client solutions that access data and functions in Web services—to connect Office applications with SAP. Instead, Duet 3.0 will use technology planned for the next major release of SharePoint Server (expected no sooner than 2009) to facilitate communications between Office clients and SAP applications. This technology will likely derive from SharePoint 2007's existing Business Data Catalog, a developer tool used as a bridge between SharePoint sites and back-end databases and business applications (such as SAP). In addition, Duet 3.0 will provide a fully documented API and SDK for extending Duet and creating custom Duet applications.

Duet 3.0 Strategic

The decision to once again alter Duet's roadmap was likely driven by several factors. Most obvious among them, Microsoft and SAP probably concluded that they could not develop, test, and release a second major version of Duet without significantly delaying Duet 3.0. Because Duet 2.0 would have been built on a technology foundation that was soon to be replaced, the companies undoubtedly viewed Duet 3.0 as a more strategic release and that shipping it on time was more important than shipping Duet 2.0.

Furthermore, Microsoft and SAP may fear that delay in the release of Duet 3.0 could translate into muted or delayed product adoption, as prospective customers are often reluctant to invest heavily in technology platforms that are soon to be obsolete. The companies could find such customers opting to wait on the sidelines for Duet 3.0 to avoid upgrade problems.

In addition, the technical overhaul that Duet 3.0 represents will be the first real opportunity for ISV partners to extend and customize the product. Unleashing ISV partners to tailor Duet solutions for specific industries and customers and to create new Duet applications could be Microsoft's and SAP's best bet to accelerate uptake of the product.

Resources

More information about Duet is at www.duet.com.

The previous Duet roadmap is outlined in "Duet Future Promised" on page 31 of the June 2007 Update.

Duet version 1.5 is described in "New Roadmap for Duet" on page 14 of the Jan. 2007 Update.

The first version of Duet was described in "Duet Delivers Office Client for SAP" on page 27 of the July 2006 Update.

Communications Server 2007 is detailed in the Nov. 2007 Research Report, "Communications Server Supports Unified Communications."