Why SAP and Microsoft can't win with this Duel..er...Duet just yet.
Written on 6:35 AM by TSO
29 April 2008
Have recently been doing some good old google research on Duet, a la Project Mendocino. Will be posting my results soon. Watch this space.
1 May 2008
Right, so here is what's happening. Microsoft decided it has no new stuff to offer, so why not make its most popular suite - Microsoft Office - more popular. Thankfully, they have come to terms with the fact that while Sharepoint and Exchange Server have survived thanks to early legacy monopoly in the IT industry (Vista might finally break that rule with most Network Administrators choosing to wait for Windows 7 than installing the AeroCrap that is Vista), there is little chance that a new Microsoft product would be accepted with as much gusto as the MacBookAir (just realised how easy Apple would have made it for reviewers if the Air was a terrible product - new Mac just a load of Hot Air, Flies away into oblivion, Air Headed Apple...you get the point...I deviate from it. Let's return). So we have one team desperate to make a comeback into the hardcore IT industry. Enter SAP. The world of warehousing at its feet, and Microsoft suddenly gets a chance to shift from business productivity market to the mega lucrative Enterprise market.
And this part, even I will admit, is pretty damn good. They've combined Outlook with MySAP, MyCRM et al so that you can do Business As Usual activities all from the new Duet enabled Outlook environment. Going for a meeting ? Do it in outlook. An unobtrusive little Duet sidebar quickly grabs info from SAP via Exchange Server (min 2003) and grabs the project codes for your account. It displays em on the side just like a To-Do bar. You pick the project for which this meeting is billable and hit 'Bill this appointment'. If Duet is configured to seek approval from your manager, it automatically sends off an email to him to approve this billing, he hits the approve/reject button (much like an Accept/Decline button for a meeting invitation) and there you go! Its all billed. No crosschecking, no end of month oh-no-did-we-bill-this scenarios.
3 May, 2008 (yes I'm a bit busy ok!)
This can be extended and configured for 10 areas as of now -
Time Management,
Budget Monitoring,
Organization Management,
Leave Management,
Travel Management,
Reports and Analytics,
Sales Management,
Purchasing Management,
Demand Planning,
Recruitment Management and
Contract Lifecycle Management.
All seems great till now. Till you decide let's get Dueted. And then...you can't. Cause your SAP is customized. Or cause it isn't the ECC version. Or your entire enterprise isn't on the same version of Outlook. Or...some inconceivable string of words only warehousing people can make head or tail of.
While Duet is expected to come up with 2.0 in Q4 of 2008, their media releases suggest that it is a mere code fixing release.The real showgun features aren't unleashed till 3.0, which isn't expected anytime soon. Till then, they'll continue testing this on clients who use off the shelf products, of which they claimed to have procured 250. Trouble is, the RoI on this kind of product is directly proportional to the size of the enterprise. And they specifically released it as a "non small and medium business" product. Very few large scale enterprises havn't got highly customized backends. Even fewer have upgraded to ECC, given the costs in migration or indeed, decommissioning such a large legacy system. Most still use the good old black and red mainframe environs. SAP, of all stakeholders, must've known this.
This product claims to further Microsoft's People Ready business tagline. Not quite. My disappointment isn't there. The proof of concept is brilliant - it would shoot down hours of specialized learning (since everyone knows Outlook), web server issues, redundancy, integrity, tracking, approval routing and what have you. Their promise of delivering the world at your inbox isn't all that exaggurated. They didn't follow through on the market readiness. I expected SAP to lift Microsoft up. Seems Microsoft's dragged SAP down. A pity. Still, if they can pull it off by 3.0, they'll be back in my fab four books (which, for the curious, is comprised of Apple, SAP, GNU and good ol Sun).
For more info go to www.duet.com.
I particularly like the demo at http://www.duet.com/AboutDuet/Demo/tabid/155/Default.aspx.
Looking at the strong feelings I seem to have unsuspectingly developed for the PC vs Mac issue as a proofread of this article proved to me 2 min ago, I might add myself to the millions of geeks who have done this debate to death by blogging about this Gate way to Job lessness. Actually its Jobs to Gatelessness if you get my drift, er Air. Oh God, I am so bad at puns right now.
