Expectations on DUET 3.0

With the forthcoming release of SharePoint 2010 in sight, it is clear that this will be the foundation application platform for other Microsoft products. Project Server, Business Intelligence strategy, Dynamics CRM, and so on. In context of SAP / Microsoft interoperability, it is interesting to watch what will happen with the DUET^TM offering, a joint SAP and Microsoft product. The DUET versions so far (1.0, 1.5) cannot be considered a success story in real practice. A lot of licenses are out there in the market (1 million licenses at 500 customers in the last 2 years), but almost no concrete applications. There are several reasons for that:

• The minimal set so far of supported SAP business packages / functionality
• The lack of development support in the current DUET^TM versions; to custom extend the minimal set
• The extra complexity and costs within the IT infrastructure due to the separate DUET server

SAP nor Microsoft have yet published the future roadmap of DUET^TM, nor recommitted themselves recently to continue this. However, several signals indicate that it will be continued, and that it will be re-architectured. For instance, at the SAP TECHED this week within Vienna it was told that DUET 3.0 will be based on SharePoint 2010. Talk of an unexpected surprise J. At the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 last week in Vegas, DUET was not or only marginally mentioned. I expect this to be intentionally, because DUET is a joint SAP + Microsoft happening; and they will use a common podium to present the [near] future roadmap of DUET^TM.

Information that is already leaking out:

• No more dedicated DUET server to handle the communications between SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft Office; but relying on the SharePoint 2010 platform/server to handle this
• UI aligned with next version of Office; Office 2010
• SAP potentially shifting away from Java in favor of ABAP (wonder why that could be…)
• Functionality around reporting and sales management, time management scenario’s

Given the foreseen dependency on a.o. SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010, it will be clear that I do not expect the appearance of DUET 3.0 before around the end of 2010. Also interesting is in what sense DUET 3.0 will be dependent on the SAP NetWeaver (SAP’s Business Process Platform) roadmap: new capabilities, functional and technical. Once again, it is a joint uptaking by SAP and Microsoft; and it therefore requires alignment with the technology and business roadmaps of both companies. No simple action, but since the companies have a common interest here and a common opponent (Oracle), I’ll certainly expect them to come up with something significant. They simple have to.

Some interesting related and recent links:

• [Blog Steve Fox] SAP TECHED 2009
• [Blog Kristian Kalsing] The new DUET architecture
• [Blog Josh Greenbaum] DUET Lives! SAP and Microsoft’s Office Interface Still Alive and Kicking
• DUET 1.x & SAP: Architectural overview
• [Blog Kent Weare] TechEd 2009 - Day 5

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint DUET integration interoperability HPW