Duet Hits Right Note For CRM, ERP Applications

August 22, 2006 — Doug Caverly, WebProNews

Duet, the "groundbreaking collaboration between SAP and Microsoft," is turning heads yet again. Intended to bridge the gaps between the companies' software, Duet captured the attention of Computerworld, which deemed it worthy of a "Special Report" in the midst of the "2006 Computerworld Horizon Awards."

Duet A Winner: Computerworld Horizon Awards 2006

August 21, 2006 — ComputerWorld

The Computerworld Horizon Awards were established last year to alert readers to especially cutting-edge technologies from research labs and companies that are "on the horizon." The 2006 winners and honorable mentions are presented here in alphabetical order.

SAP AG and Microsoft Corp.'s Duet: Glue for SAP And Office

August 21, 2006 — Drew Robb, Computerworld

Duet for Microsoft and SAP

May 31, 2006 — CRM Daily

Microsoft and SAP made good on a long-standing promise with "Duet," an integration of Microsoft's ubiquitous Office productivity suite and SAP's software... "Traditionally, we have had different kinds of applications from different kinds of vendors all architected differently, and that is not what people want," said Jim Shepherd, senior vice president at AMR Research.

Gartner Says Business Application Vendors Face Challenge to Move to 'The Process of Me'

May 25, 2006 — CRM Today

One of the most significant challenges facing major vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP is to evolve their business applications to meet the needs of individuals carrying out their work, instead of the traditional focus on enterprise process automation, according to Gartner. Speaking at its Spring Symposium/ITxpo in Barcelona today, Gartner said that while business applications have enabled enterprises to manage their business processes, they are also the reason that enterprises can't be as innovative or agile as they would like since the human factor has largely been ignored. As organisations seek to leverage their skilled people, reduce training time and support end-to-end workflow across all aspects of the business, applications software now needs to be designed for the individual. Gartner has coined this people-process intersection the 'process of me'.

SAPPHIRE US - Duet is "an absolute breakthrough," SAP says

May 17, 2006 — John Blau, InfoWorld

Bill McDermott is excited about the direction business software vendor SAP AG is headed. And for someone who has led the company's U.S. operations to 14 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth, he has every right to be.

In his keynote speech delivered Tuesday to more than 15,000 customers, partners and select employees at the Sapphire user event in Orlando, Florida, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of SAP Americas gave a few reasons for his excitement: the company has delivered promising new products, such as CRM (customer relationship management) on-demand, SAP Analytics, and Duet, jointly developed with Microsoft Corp., and it is breaking new ground with its services-based architecture. McDermott referred to Duet as an "absolute breakthrough," an innovative product that links workers at the Microsoft desktop to enterprise applications from SAP. He called the product a "major differentiator" for how companies could run their business.

'Multiple waves' of Duet integration scenarios coming

May 3, 2006 — China Martens, IT World

Once their combined Duet software launches in June, Microsoft Corp. and SAP AG plan to issue regular releases of additional integration capabilities dubbed "scenarios," with each release targeted around a specific area of a corporation's operations, executives from the two companies said Tuesday.

Gates' Microsoft Sings Duet With SAP

May 2, 2006 — Chris Noon, Forbes

Birds of a feather? With the announcement of a plan to dovetail portions of software to perform quotidian tasks, Bill Gates' software leviathan Microsoft and German giant SAP are tweeting from the same song sheet. New software called Duet, which debuts June 28 and costs at least $125 per PC that runs it, is intended for large companies that want to tie business data from SAP's (nyse: SAP - news - people ) accounting, HR and inventory software systems to Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) ubiquitous Outlook e-mail program. Duet, formerly code-named "Mendocino", should later be able to siphon data to other Office applications, including Excel.

Microsoft and SAP make sweet music together

May 2, 2006 — Steve Hamm, Business Week

On May 2, the two companies lifted the veil and revealed what Mendocino—now called Duet—is all about. It's quite a nifty thing. For the first time, desktop PC applications are effectively integrated with heavy-duty run-the-business applications. And clearly it's a win-win for the two companies.

SAP and Microsoft tune up for Duet

May 2, 2006 — Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com

A year ago, SAP and Microsoft announced "Project Mendocino," software to enable customers to interact with SAP applications through Microsoft Office. Now renamed Duet, the software will be available, as planned, in June, the companies said Tuesday. Microsoft and SAP intend to jointly market the program this year, which will include customer briefing events starting next month. Customers have been testing the applications linkup since December, for tasks such as using Microsoft's Outlook e-mail client to view detailed budget data drawn from an SAP back-office system.

SAP and Microsoft hope to sing a Duet

May 2, 2006 — IT World

SAP AG and Microsoft Corp. announced the official name for Project Mendocino on Tuesday and said they plan to ship the jointly developed software on schedule in June.

Microsoft And SAP To Deliver New "Duet" Software In June

May 2, 2006 — Laurie Sullivan and Aaron Ricadela, InformationWeek

Microsoft and SAP said Tuesday that new software called Duet, which can link portions of the companies' software together to perform everyday office tasks, will be available June 28 and cost at least $125 per PC that runs it.

Duet, the result of a yearlong development project between the software vendors, will be aimed at large companies that want to tie business data from SAP's accounting, human resources, and inventory software systems to Microsoft's Outlook E-mail program. The companies are promising that Duet will later be able to funnel data to other Microsoft Office apps including Excel. Duet, formerly code-named "Mendocino," will be sold by both Microsoft and SAP, as well as by the companies' channel partners

Microsoft, SAP Rename Project Mendocino as Duet

May 2, 2006 — CIO

SAP and Microsoft announced the official name for Project Mendocino on Thursday and said they plan to ship the jointly developed software in June.

Mendocino will officially be called Duet, the companies said. The name presumably is meant to suggest harmony between the two software makers, which first announced the joint project about a year ago.

Microsoft, SAP to release Mendocino as Duet, unveil Web site

May 2, 2006 — Robert Westervelt, News Editor

Microsoft and SAP have branded their joint Mendocino project and launched a new Web site for the software that was released Tuesday. The new software, now called Duet, will debut at the end of June. Customers using Duet will also need a license to SAP's latest version, mySAP ERP 2004, according to Microsoft. Microsoft and SAP went live today with a joint Web site called Duet.com, which includes blog posts from product marketers and developers, live videos and Webcasts and testimonials from early adopters. The site also includes a demo of the product. The two software vendors plan a joint press conference today to formally unveil Duet.

Update: Microsoft and SAP rename Project Mendocino as Duet

May 2, 2006 — James Niccolai, IDG News Service

SAP and Microsoft announced the official name for Project Mendocino on Tuesday and said they plan to ship the jointly developed software on schedule in June. SAP hopes the tighter links to Office will help bring its software to a broader range of users, who should not need extensive retraining because they will already be familiar with the Office applications.

SAP: Mendocino On Schedule

March 24, 2006 — Laurie Sullivan, TechWeb

SAP AG said Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s decision to hold off on delivering 2007 Microsoft Office to consumers until January will not affect the "general availability" roll out of Mendocino in June. Microsoft said Friday the 2007 Microsoft Office package will ship to business customers in October 2006. Consumers will have to wait until January 2007. Both products had been expected later this year. "We will add support for Office 2007, and we're targeting to remain in sync with the Microsoft's release," said Sharada Achanta, senior director solution marketing at SAP. "We don't expect any impact to businesses." "The pieces in Mendocino that would affect businesses are features, such as reporting and tracking, as well as recording office time and attendance, that are not offered in the consumer edition," Ray Wang, senior analyst for enterprise applications at Forrester Research Inc. "These features are a small piece of Office 2007."

SAP records robust growth in Malaysia

March 23, 2006 — H. Amir Khalid, The Star Online

SAP Malaysia is looking to build on a year of robust revenue growth, particularly in what it considers the small- and mid-sized enterprise, with Mendocino, its software collaboration with Microsoft. "We are on the tipping point of becoming the standard in enterprise applications," said SAP Malaysia managing director Eric MacDonald at a media briefing on SAP Malaysia's 2005 business performance recently. This year, the most important arrow in the German enterprise software giant's technology quiver might prove to be Mendocino....It would save workers who were users of MySAP ERP from having to alternate between MySAP ERP and Microsoft Office, and going through the rigmarole of logging in and out as they did so, and being less productive than they could be as a result.

SAP Brings Microsoft into Virtualization Fold

March 15, 2006 — ComputerWire

As part of its long-term initiative to increase its addressable market, SAP AG has opened up its NetWeaver platform so its application virtualization capabilities can be used in Microsoft environments.... The announcement also brings SAP closer to Microsoft because the company also said that the virtualization capability will be applicable to future SAP/Microsoft co-developments. SAP and Microsoft may have rejected idea of a merger on the grounds of complexity but the principle of an alliance still makes sense against the all-in Oracle infrastructure-to-applications play. They are becoming increasingly closer as demonstrated by the joint Mendocino project, this extension, and the promise of future joint developments.