White paper discussing the promise of Duet® Enterprise

CITO Research has published The Business Value of Duet Enterprise, a research white paper sponsored by Microsoft. Such sponsorship always contains the risk of the result being more of an advertorial instead of an independent and thorough analysis + evaluation. This paper at locations certainly qualifies as unconditional product promotion, but it also presents several useful insights and details on the mission and capabilities of Duet Enterprise.

The paper discussions the mission and values of Duet® Enterprise from different viewpoints and angles:

• [as it should be] Starts with the business vision; the why
• the architecture and interoperability approach; the how at high level
• examples of what can be achieved; use cases
• the components of the Duet Enterprise foundation; it's building blocks for composing applications that surface SAP line-of-business content and processes in user interface formats tailored to the needs of the nowadays Information Workers
• the personality of composites that are best realized via either Duet Enterprise, Business Connectivity Services, or rather BizTalk; choosing the right interop tool for the task/scenario at hand

Some of the most noticable points to take from the paper are:

1. The statement that although Duet® Enterprise relies on SAP NetWeaver 7.02; it can handle scenario's where a company's SAP environment consists of many generations of SAP applications. From SAP R3 4.6C to SAP ERP 6.0 and beyond.
2. Duet® Enterprise is SAP / MS interoperability foundation; for rapid development and construction of custom applications
3. Duet® Enterprise enables the rapid development approach by providing the needed interop plumping
4. Duet® Enterprise builds on existing investments in SAP [business applications + architecture] and Microsoft [Information Worker] software.
5. Duet® Enterprise fits in with existing modern IT management, development processes and environment/technologies.
6. Duet® Enterprise is one way for realizing the vision of Office Business Applications when it concerns connecting with SAP line-of-business.

Missing in the paper is a thorough consideration of the strengths versus weaknesses; of the product and of the proposition itself. With respect to that, Duet® Enterprise could be seen as a threat to some of the SAP business. Although it's promise is to extend the reach of SAP business capabilities beyond its traditional usage and departments, it does so via Microsoft instead of SAP software. It will be interesting to watch hows this develops, and what it will mean for the business of both SAP as Microsoft. Ideally, both will prospher from it. Only then, the combined effort will truly deliver, and have a future.