SAP Lets Partners In On Duet

The software, built with Microsoft, has been available directly to MySAP ERP customers since June. Microsoft also made it available to its partners last week.

At the launch, SAP executives said the product would be offered direct only but then quickly retreated from those statements.

Addressing SAP's time lag in offering Duet via partners, an SAP executive said the company wanted to do further testing.

"We wanted to make sure the product is absolutely ready for the midmarket," said Udo Waibel, senior vice president of emerging solutions for SAP, Waldorf, Germany.

The shipping Duet product connects MySAP ERP 2004 back-end systems with Microsoft Office 2003 applications. A version for MySAP ERP 2005 is due out by the year's end, and support for Office 2007 will be made available via a solution pack soon after that product suite ships, Waibel told CRN.

Microsoft volume-license accounts are slated to get Office 2007 by the end of the year, and general availability via retail and OEM bundles is expected in late January.