By Freya Purnell
SAP gave the first Australian demonstration of Duet Enterprise, which will supersede the Duet 1.5 platform, at the SAP World Tour 2010 event in Sydney this week.
Co-developed by Microsoft and SAP, Duet Enterprise differs from the original Duet as it leverages SharePoint 2010 to access SAP data. At the demonstration, SAP senior solution architect Paul Fewster confirmed that there would be no further versions of Duet, and there will also be no upgrade path from Duet 1.5 to Duet Enterprise.
In a media briefing after the event, SAP ANZ solution manager Tim Wilkes conceded that Duet 1.5 had been hampered by its lack of an SDK for customers to create their own flows, and so had not achieved the anticipated uptake with customers.
Wilkes said around half a dozen customers had expressed an interest in the early release of Duet Enterprise, but that it was unlikely SAP would be able to accommodate all the requests.
With SAP announcing plans to open up its toolset to the internet development market for customers and partners to create solutions on mobile devices, Wilkes said this would be facilitated through Duet Enterprise, but that it was more likely to occur in 2011 than this year.
It also seems a longer wait will be in store for Business ByDesign, SAP’s long-anticipated SaaS offering for the SME market. While Ian Black, COO, SAP ANZ said that it is being released in six countries globally for volume business, and that Australia would see a release next year.
However, SAP ANZ director of products and solutions group, John Goldrick, said there was actually no Australian release date currently set.
