Duet sings of the future of CRM

The twelve-month collaboration between SAG AG and Microsoft Corporation has entered a new phase with the official confirmation of Duet, a product that is promised to allow used to link SAP business processes with Microsoft Office desktop programs. The product is currently being beta tested in slightly fewer than one hundred joint sites. Originally dubbed “Project Mendocino,” Duet seeks to capture an audience of untold size just waiting to be appealed to with a simple-to-use product. The target audience is clear: Many millions use Microsoft Office; relatively few have access to CRM. However, duet should bring that all home to Joe User, once Duet is hooked in to enable access to ERP and CRM functions through Office. “Duet is a business mashup,” explained Duet tester and IDC collaboration and enterprise workplace research vice president Mark Levitt, using an odd choice of wording, “of Microsoft Office applications with SAP enterprise information and processes that can improve the quality and speed of decision making and workforce productivity.”

SAP and Microsoft are expected to offer Duet “value packs” before the end of 2006 for use in analytics, purchasing management, travel management and sales activity management. Also planned are frequent releases of what the companies are calling “scenarios,” which involves addressing a concrete area of company operations. Two value packs are planned for Duet. These value packs will expose five additional scenarios in Office coming from SAP applications for CRM and supplier relationship management. With the value packs, Microsoft and SAG AG promise to exploit the capabilities of Duet beyond self-service for employees and managers to enable operational efficiencies and cost savings. The packs are designed for compatibility with the next release of mySAP ERP and the 2007 release of Microsoft Office System, and will expand language support to include English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Olé, indeed.