Last week, SAP and Microsoft proved what was possible when you get a couple of 16-ton gorillas to march in sync. They introduced what's for now, the enterprise's ultimate mashup: ERP and Microsoft Office. And today, SAP is making similar announcements with IBM.
Duet, the official name of the joint SAP/Microsoft offering, is designed to push SAP's installed base past the core 10 - 20% of the enterprise. The value proposition is, wouldn't it be great if a manager who needs budget rollups once or twice a week gets them fed to the Excel spreadsheets that is his/her de facto standard? Or what about the road warrior who would rather stay in Outlook than fiddle with the CRM system?
