Tuesday, April 24, 2007
» SAP and Microsoft lay out Duet roadmap | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
» SAP and Microsoft lay out Duet roadmap Between the Lines ZDNet.com: "As I discovered yesterday, the SAP-Microsoft co-development on Duet has not been easy. Dennis Moore, who has been in charge of the Duet project, said that working with Microsoft on Duet has been a challenge.
'Our focus on the customer is somehow different from Microsoft's. We don't have a common understanding,' Moore said. 'A minority at Microsoft thought we could somehow control access to data by pulling it into a file and using Microsoft DRM.' SAP's security is far too granular to support Microsoft's idea, he said. 'Microsoft's assumption is that software has to be capable of being installed and run without support. There are certainly areas where we are learning from each other.'
SAP and Microsoft compete on the application side, with Microsoft Dynamics and SAPs similar products, but executives from both companies said it wouldn't impact Duet development. 'The key principle here is that customers want to get more value out of ERP systems and leverage their familiarity with Microsoft Office,' said Raikes, adding that Office reaches 500 million users. 'We took a major step together with SAP two years ago and the customer demand is great. The Dynamics group is looking at how Office can enhance access to business processes.' "
'Our focus on the customer is somehow different from Microsoft's. We don't have a common understanding,' Moore said. 'A minority at Microsoft thought we could somehow control access to data by pulling it into a file and using Microsoft DRM.' SAP's security is far too granular to support Microsoft's idea, he said. 'Microsoft's assumption is that software has to be capable of being installed and run without support. There are certainly areas where we are learning from each other.'
SAP and Microsoft compete on the application side, with Microsoft Dynamics and SAPs similar products, but executives from both companies said it wouldn't impact Duet development. 'The key principle here is that customers want to get more value out of ERP systems and leverage their familiarity with Microsoft Office,' said Raikes, adding that Office reaches 500 million users. 'We took a major step together with SAP two years ago and the customer demand is great. The Dynamics group is looking at how Office can enhance access to business processes.' "
