The Connected Desktop

The Experience Mashup: Mash-up the Desktop with the Web

2007-09-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

Mash-up is a word that one hears frequently these days. Definitions of the word are still evolving - there are data mash-ups, consumer mash-ups and business mash-ups. that are beginning to be understood by a small population of developers and vendors.

I think that we are at the beginning of the evolution of the word mash-up, and what it means. Basically, mash-up is a mixture. One can mix data from different sources - as done in data mash-ups, one can present in novel intriguing ways - as done in consumer mash-ups, and one can present it in unique way to bring out some aspect of the data which is now visually easier to recognize - as done in business mash-ups. But those are only the early mash-ups, the first-borns, if one may say so, of a species that will soon thrive and multiply.

One mash-up, that I think is just on the horizon, is the mashup of user experience. A mash-up that will enable users to experience information where they want it, regardless of where they are at this time. Whether on their desktop, or on a web site.

Experience web news when on Word. Or experience a Excel table, when viewing stock news on a financial news and stock movements. Mash-up information interfaces and tools and enable a seamless user experience of information where they want it, without worrying about which interface tool they should pick up. Not just about data, but about user experience. A mash-up that merges our private desktop world, with the outside web world, and in a manner that puts us in control.

-Sangeeta

The One Interface to Bind Them All

2007-08-17T03:10:00.000-07:00

The Browser. Thats the one interface that people think would bind them all - all the multiple data sources. Whether the information comes from the ever expanding web, or from deep within the enterprise data ravines, or from Excel files, or from E-mail stores. If you want to reach it to more people, just put a browser on the face of the data store, and you are on! Bingo!

A large part of that is true. The browser indeed has changed the boundaries of the information repositories forever. The browser has enabled information to be served to people in self-serve modes and has created the internet revolution.

But lets not get carried away. Browsers are great for many applications, and are woefully inadequate for some. Firstly, browsers have to be told where to go. Further, browsers open up in different windows and force me to switch my context. Browsers work only on desktops. Browsers do not enable me to mix data from more than one source. One browser page per site. Browsers do not allow me to add my own stuff and store it away for future use. Browsers do not enable me to create my own format - my own view of data.

Because of this, despite a decade of the browser being born, the desktop applications are still there, and will continue to live. Further, with the growing complexity, there will be- and are - more interfaces that I would need to do my job. Interfaces that would track things for me, interfaces that would enable me to work on my documents that I store on my machine, interfaes that would bring me data wherever I am, without forcing me to change my context.

I want information to be available wherever I am. I may want it when I am creating a report in Word, or creating my family contacts in Outlook, or as I track my recent investments in a stock. And I find that using a browser to look up information is not as productive as I like it to be. No wonder, I have multiple applications on my desktop as I work, and as I flit between applications and web pages, changing my context, and cutting-pasting across windows several times during even 5 minutes. Worse is, when I am away from the office and away from my desktop.

Surely, there is a better way than a browser. The browser does what it does admirably. But does it do all the things that I want it to do? Is it possible to create a browser that is a one-interface-that-binds-them-all?

A Swiss Army Knife has many tools. There are multiple things a woman needs to do. How can one tool do them all?

-Sangeeta

Well, why not Duet?

2007-06-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that it was time I spoke about some of the things that I do like about Duet from SAP and Microsoft. No, it isn't a change of heart - I still think Duet has a long way to go before it delivers on what people expect it to be - but there are several things that are right about it.

For one, Duet is right in providing a solution to the friction between the workflow-enabled-business-process SAP world and the personal colloboration based Outlook world. It helps a user perform work flow transactions from within Outlook. It helps users look up data, compare it with previous history, and finally, complete the transaction from right within Outlook, and have it reflected in SAP.

Secondly, Duet does a decent job in providing the context sensitive data elements along side the automated e-mail generated, so that the user can effortlessly do the job. Further, it intuits the users context reasonably well with its integration with Outlook objects, and succeeds in providing a reasonably intuitive delivery of information.

Thirdly, the experience is seamless, and yes, it does look pretty. Prettier than SAP screens.

If Duet could connect to more data sources besides SAP, and enable users to build their own pathways inside Outlook and enable their work-flows, it would be loved by CIOs and users alike, notwithstanding its heavy middleware and upgrade costs.

-Sangeeta

The connected 'Office": The Microsoft Version

2007-06-05T04:25:00.000-07:00

The MS Office applications are a big part of the desktop, and for years have faced the same fate as the MS desktop. The MS Office applications have been disconnected with back-end process applications and web data stores, and users use Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V to navigate across the two worlds.

Office Business Applications, aka OBAs, is a product from Microsoft to change that. OBA provides a mechanism to connect Office to back-end Line of business applications. With OBAs, information workers can connect, interact and perform business transactions with Office as a front-end. Sounds good, does'nt it?

But of course, OBAs will only run on the recent versions of Office. OBAs are built using Microsoft Visual Studio for Office, and under the hood, are deployed on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server, and as given in the Price Management example here and SCM example here, runs on Microsoft middleware stack, on top of an enterprise application. Considering that this is a offering from Microsoft, this was expected. Does'nt Microsoft always want to have it all?

OBAs could be built in other ways and without adding all that stack from Microsoft. Extensio has built its own set of OBAs - which we call as Extender for Excel, and Extender for Outlook, on a SOA backbone. It is free of any Microsoft middleware components, and the server can even run on Linux. And yes, it is built on older Office interfaces of Microsoft and can run on Office 2000+ installations.

Things are beginning to get interesting!

-Sangeeta

Duet is not doing as well as it should be...

2007-06-05T01:43:00.000-07:00

Someone called it the Duet sad song!

It is now out in the open. Steve Ballmer acknowledged at the keynote for Software 2007 that Duet has not done as well as it was expected to.

Not surprising. Afterall, Duet could connect only to latest versions of SAP- AND could work only with Office 2003+ versions - AND had no development framework - AND required a whole bunch of middeware from SAP and Microsoft both - AND enabled only a few limited value packs that enabled a handful of SAP transactions though Office. With all that onerous bunch of software under its hood, and the steep upgrades it needed, Duet really did deliver too little.

So, what could happen next? Would Duet be given a quiet burial - or would it be re-packaged and re-sold as a newly christened Office Business Application aka OBA, this time around only by Microsoft, and only with Microsoft stack? Something tells me that it would be the latter.

Could it be that Microsoft just used Duet as a pilot for its own OBA run? Nasty of me.

-Sangeeta

Vista Gadgets would need Vista on the desktop to run

2007-04-26T03:24:00.000-07:00

That is an obvious statement.

There are many of us who wonder why gadgets would not run on XP. Because there are many of us who do not want to upgrade to Vista, for lack of sufficient reason to do so. Why buy a more expensive OS when the current one suits us fine? There are others, desktop gadgets - mentioned in my earlier posts - which do not require Vista, and can run on Windows 2000+ machines.

Power to such alternatives! May their tribe grow!

- Sangeeta

The Desktop Getting Crowded, but why only Vista Desktop?

2007-04-25T02:57:00.000-07:00

The race towards offering the best connected desktop is hotting up. Already there were quite a few players that had created desktop-resident technologies with Yahoo and Google being the heavy weights from the web space, and of course, Microsoft with its Vista Gadget offering - after all, Microsoft does own the desktop. But there are more players getting added in every month, and that too, more of the enterprise types than the consumer types.

Hyperion is a case in point. With its recent announcement of Smart Space Gadgets , Hyperion delivers, I quote - "always-on business intelligence (BI) and BPM to knowledge workers throughout the enterprise" from its BI application. Smart space gadgets run only on Vista, so I guess it can get rolled out only after the next desktop upgrade cycle. I saw BEA making a similar annoucement some time back.

But desktop connectivity can also be made available on desktops without Vista upgrades. Yahoo Widgets, for example, runs on all Windows 2000+ machines, and so does Google Desktop.

Then why this preference to Vista gadgets? Specially since Vista hasnt exactly seen a upgrade wave as yet. Incidentally, clever strategy by Microsoft - using their hegemony at the desktop to enter some other area. In this case, it appears that Microsoft wants to enter the enterprise back-end. They have done this earlier - piggy backing on some existing products to enter other areas, and with devastating effect. This time around, other vendors seem to be helping Microsoft to succeed in this upgrade-to-Vista-to-get-personalised-gadgets strategy. Interesting.

-Sangeeta

One of the Duet partners goes Solo

2007-03-29T04:13:00.000-07:00

The term Desktop Gadget means Microsoft Gadgets? Naaaah...

2007-02-22T01:18:00.000-08:00

While I was writing the previous post, I checked out Wikipedia, and was surprised to see that the term Desktop Gadgets currently points to Microsoft Gadgets.

Amusing, isn't it? As if Microsoft Gadgets are the only Sidebar gadgets - Pshaw!!

-Sangeeta

WhatsIsName - Widget? Gadget? Desktop Gadget? Pagelet?

2007-02-21T23:58:00.000-08:00

There are so many terms floating around to call these little floating windows that developers are creatings for the desktop users. Not surprising, considering the fact that the terms are just beginning to gain currency, and it would be a while before the larger populace decides what to call this thingummajigs.

Newsweek called it widgets - though what they wrote about were desktop gadgets from Microsoft and Apple. Whats the difference? Not very much in the eyes of the users, maybe, but plenty in the eyes of the developer.

My take on these terms, and the difference between them:

1. Widgets: Small snippets of code-enabled-HTML that can be embedded in HTML pages by end-users themselves. The widget contains content that is hosted on some server, either owned by the end user or by some content provider - but the widget itself is displayed on some other site than the original hosted site. Typically on the "social" sites, such as Myspace, or on blogs, like this one. Widgets run on browsers only. Some people also call them web gadgets. Sigh - more names, more confusion

2. Gadgets/Desktop Gadgets: These are desktop applications that float a small pretty looking window on the users desktop. These are proper desktop applications that need to be installed on the desktop, in some cases, and do not need a browser. There are gadgets which work stand-alone, and are reasonably popular.

And then are some gadgets that require engines to run them. Typically, they have a mother application that provide the run-time environment for these pretty little windows. The mother application, called by some as the Widget Engine , has a interface that sits on the user desktop - as a sidebar, or as a toolbar. This mother application, or widget engine, hosts the pretty little windows, called Gadget (or desktop gadget) which runs within it. Google Desktop is one such example, and the MicrosoftVista gadgets are another. In case of the Google desktop, users have the download the Google Desktop on their machines. In case of Microsoft Vista, Vista comes bundled with the Vista Sidebar, and with some out-of-the-box gadgets. In both cases, other developers (other than Google and Microsoft) can build gadgets for the Sidebar, and make it available to end-users. Though the point looks obvious, but it still needs to be stated - Gadgets built for Vista would not run on other Gadget Siderbars, such as say, Google Desktop and vice versa.

There are people who call these desklets also. Yikes, another term...

3. Pagelets: These are again small code-enabled-HTML snippets that run on HTML pages, and need a browser to run. Much like widgets, but with a key difference. All the widgets, er, pagelets, are hosted on one Pagelet Server. Much like the "portals" of previous years, these pagelet server providers provide a entry page, where several widgets are hosted, each displaying its own content. Much like the previous portal pages, users can personalise their home pagelet page to suit their preferences. Needless to say, these too are available only through a browser. Best examples of these are Netvibes and fittingly called Pageflakes.

The underlying idea for all three, namely Widgets, Desktop Gadgets and pagelets is the same. To extend the idea of proving data within users' context, and go beyond providing links. All of them are designed to create a user experience that is connected, easy to use, and within the users context, a crying need for information crunchers today. They are also similar in another respect - that of getting data from mutliple places from the web, or some other data stores, and placing it within a particular context.

What the difference is, is really the context. In case of Widgets, the context is a page, owned and managed by the user. In desktop gadgets, the desktop of the user is the context, and in pagelets, the pagelet provider's portal page is the context. Does context matter?

I think it matters a great deal. But more on that later

- Sangeeta

SAP does not eat its own dogfood?

2007-01-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

Jeff Nolan writes about SAP not using Duet itself .

I quote from Jeffs blog "How long before you see mashups entering the workplace that do things like expense management from calendar details, a solution you would have to buy from SAP/Microsoft (Duet) and implement providing you have all the pieces in place to do it, and if it were so easy why is SAP itself not running Duet internally (the answer is in the version requirements)?"

I cannot but agree with him. The kind of infrastructure and versions needed on the application, middleware, and the desktop for running Duet is way too onerous, as I pointed out here.

- Sangeeta

The Year of the Widget is Upon Us

2007-01-30T03:10:00.000-08:00

The Year 2007 will be the year of the widget, says Newsweek.

But, of course! I had'nt expected this kind of resonance to my thoughts, but I sure feel validated.

Widgets featured in the article may fall short of going mainstream. The current crop of widgets run only on Windows Vista and on the forthcoming Apple OS. None of those are mainstream. Not yet, and not likely to be in 2007. The current lot also does not bring the desktop context to the widget, nor does it interact amongst each other.

The widget-on-the-web, such as Netvibes or Pageflake, may become mainstream though.

My feeling is, the term Widget will get redefined during the year, evolve to address the desktop connectivity issue, get re-purposed, and certainly kick up some dust - not just dust, maybe a storm.

- Sangeeta

Desktop is Desktop – and Web is Web – and never the twain shall meet! And should they?

2007-01-29T05:13:00.000-08:00

The importance and role of the Desktop has been challenged recently by the Web, with some of the only-done-on-desktop stuff being done on the web, with on-the-web spreadsheets, on the web documents, on-the-web videos and what have you.

But would the Web replace the Desktop? No, not quite yet, may be never.

And here is why. The desktop world is about privacy and control, and the web world is about exploring, sharing and collaborating. Most of us build walls, called firewalls, around our desktop world to protect ourselves from the outside prying eyes. Our desktop world is our personal world, and the web is our social world. And yes, we would continue to want to keep them separate, or at any rate, would want to have to right to decide how much of our personal stuff we want to keep on the web.

Our information world, then, will continue to the divided into two – the personal one that is stored on our desktop, the one which is guarded fiercely from the world, with firewalls, intrusion detection software and anti-virus software and spam filters etc - and the other social one, the public information space that we inhabit and work on.

The same is true for the business world as well. Businesses will continue to barricade themselves within firewalls, put rules on who can access information when and where, and even, frame rules on what kind of web content can be viewed on their business desktops.

Does this desktop-web divide need to be bridged? Why should anyone require to bridge these two worlds? Because they are a pain un-bridged. Every travel done across these worlds, and it is done often enough, requires one to swap context, painful and error prone cut-and-paste, and is simply irksome. Clearly, this is problem which needs to be solved.

The Desktop and the Web - the time to meet each other has come!

Odd, A lone customer testimonial...

2007-01-29T00:43:00.000-08:00

I recently read this article by Bruce Richardson of AMR Research, on how Duet is considered as one of the potent weapons to grow the SAP business by Team SAP.

The revenue potential for Duet, or applications that extend the context of the desktop applications to ERP applications is large. Specially on existing accounts. And yet, yet, there is only one customer, out the 300,000 licenses sold from 200,00o customer interactions, that has chosen to come out and talk about it.

Why this reticence from customers? After two years of the announcements and significant customer interest displayed during the launch time - and all this while customers keep asking for more desktop integration, there is just ONE lone customer who decides to speak about Duet publicly?

Odd. Distinctly odd.

In my opinion, these would be the top reasons for the customer silence:

1. The current Duet scenarios are too simple - and do not really deliver much. So, at this time, there is'nt anything to talk about.
2. In absence of development tools, the potential of desktop integration is not really well understood or realized
3. CIOs are yet to find the exact ROI for desktop integration. Sure, it improves the life of Information Worker. But how much? How many hours are saved? Does it reduce the number of steps a process takes?
4. No one has gone "live" on Duet yet. Maybe it is early days yet.

Maybe there is more to this silence. Any other opinion, anyone?

-Sangeeta

A Seamless Desktop: No More "Cntrl C" and 'Cntrl V"

2006-12-07T01:21:00.000-08:00

The desktop of the future - or even the one available in the immediate future - will be one which would not need Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V keys. Information will be available, within ones context, within ones application, within ones document and spreadsheet, with a single click, allowing one to work with an uninterrupted thought flow.

And it will be happen sooner, than later. The time for the Future Desktop, the one they call by different names - Desktop 2.0, Business mash-ups etc - the desktop user interface that has no boundaries for an information seeker, is NOW.

There are already glimpses of it from the technology world. There are several I have looked at and liked, such as the Google Desktop. Some I have seen a sneak preview/screenshot of - such as Windows Vista Sidebar and gadgets. Some of these technolgies have been around for some time - though they did not have the "Desktop 2.0" tag with them, such as Answers.com desktop assistant, and even our own, Extensio Desktop Extender.

Clearly, the seamless desktop, a need long felt, is now upon us. It is early days yet to say how it would look and whether it would finally meet the "information on finger tip" promise, but it sure promises to be an exciting time.

- Sangeeta

Just take this Duet Quiz!

2006-08-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

I came across this interesting quiz on Duet. It tells you a lot of facts about Duet that are sometimes glossed over in sales colleterals and demos. There are some interesting ones as well.

Just to share - I got 8 out of the 10 questions right! Duet-watcher as I am, I still discovered a few things. Like I did not know that Duet required 1G of disk space.

Well well, we live and learn, don't we?

- Sangeeta

Office 2007 slips again...

2006-06-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has announced another delay in the shipment date of Office 2007.

The news article quotes Michaie Silver, a Gartner analyst, on an important point - a point that must be a source of considerable heartburn for enterprise who bought the 'future" story of Microsoft:

"Gartner analyst Michael Silver noted that the delay in Office could hit some businesses hard, particularly those that signed volume license contracts in late 2003. Such Enterprise Agreement or Software Assurance contracts offer, among other things, the right to any new versions of the product that come out over a period of time, typically three years.

"Each month they miss is another group of customers that renewed EA or SA in 2003 that got no new version of Office for their payments," Silver said. "It was just March when Microsoft emphatically stated that Office 2007 would be on the October price list. Even at close range, they can't forecast this stuff."

In other words, people paid money to Microsoft for an upgrade that they never got. Boy, it must be making them- oh so mad.

One rule that I have learnt the hard way. Avoid paying for anything that is going to be delivered in the future. Even if the person who is promising you the future is the biggest software company in the world. Pay post delivery. Pay now for what you get Now.

Poeple who think about buying Duet which would deliver more value packs in the future than it does today, may want to consider the past record of one of the Duet members.

- Sangeeta

Things Vendors do - Hope that does not happen with Duet

2006-06-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

Check out this link for a strip from Dilbert Comic. What a take on vendors and lock-ins!

Let us see the product road map for Duet. Value packs to be delivered in the future, Development tools to be delivered in the future, Excel connectivity to be delivered in the future...Hmmmmm, Makes one uncomfortable, does it not?

- Sangeeta

FAQ about Duet: As heard at SAP Summit, Mumbai

2006-06-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

Last week I was at the SAP Summit in Mumbai, India. Great event, with some 2000 people participating, maybe about 60/70% of attendees were SAP customers or actively considering SAP for their ERP application.

All the three presentations on Duet were enthusiastically attended, some 400 people, with several people standing and crowding at the doors. The speaker faced a barrage of questions - here is what got frequently asked, across multiple sessions, sometimes by more than one person:

Q1. Can Duet be extended to other business processes?
Ans 1: Not at this time. It is right now limited to the four scenarios we have. Later we will build value packs.

Q2: Can I build my own Duet scenarios? Can I build links to MS Office for myself?
Ans: Not at this time. A Duet development toolkit is currently being created and will be given out to partner companies later this year. GA would follow. Another option being announced by Microsoft is LOBI program, which uses Office as a front-end interface and provides development interfaces to developers. Details are not yet out at this time.

Q3: Will I need to buy SAP license for Duet even if my user has a SAP license and a domain license and a Office license?
Ans: Yes. ( Disbelief from the audience)
Q3- repeated by the same person: Maybe you did not hear me right. I said I already have a SAP user license, and have a Office license. Would I still need to buy ANOTHER Duet license?
Ans: Yes.

Q4: What about Excel? Will Duet include Excel? Or will that be a seperate license?
Ans: Yes, Excel will be included in Duet. Dates to be announced soon.

Q5: Why do you need SQL Server in Duet?
Ans: Duet needs SQL Server to store its repository. You need what is known as Lean SQL Server (I think thats what the guy said)

Q6: The current scenarios are more for project companie, and only for employee processes. What about manufacturing companies? Can I use Duet for my SCM application and create Outlook processes with my vendors?
Ans: The SCM scenario using SAP is planned in value pack 2. If you have some other SCM application, Duet would not work against that.

I walked out at this juncture. I could sense the feeling in the room, of Duet being not being what they thought it was.

Outside, a bunch of CIOs were sharing notes. One CIO said that he would wait for the next upgrade cycle for the desktops. Maybe by then, Vista would have shipped, several more value packs would be out, and maybe the development tools would be out as well. One said that he did not see himself spending on Office upgrades to get this level of functionality, and for only one application SAP. Another CIO lamented that he had hoped Duet would hekp him reduce his licensing by providing SAP access on Office. Alas, this was not to be! Another CIO wondered - Would this reduce my TCO, how? One CIO looked puzzled, "This thin delivery is so unlike SAP..."

It is.

- Sangeeta

People wise up to see the upgrade agenda in Duet

2006-06-13T01:41:00.000-07:00

As Internetnews.com recently pointed out, Duet enables Microsoft to push upgrades.

One can understand why Microsoft is doing it, but the reasons for the other Duet partner to do it continue to escape me.

- Sangeeta

Why Write a Blog on Duet?

2006-06-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

Duet is a category creator kind of product in the area of desktop connectivity, an issue close to my heart, and one that I am invested in, in multiple ways. I like the fact that industry chiefs, SAP and Microsoft, have recognized this end-user pain, and that some of the issues I have seen end-users battling with, would be resolved in the future. Several folks from the blogosphere have wondered here and here why I have chosen to write a blog about a specific product.

I write about Duet because I have serious misgivings about the way it is composed. The way Duet is created, it would have the world believe that end-users can ONLY achieve desktop connectivity if they did the “n” things that Duet asked them to do – ie Upgrade desktops, install huge middleware, upgrade SAP itself etc. But this is not so.

I know. We have done it with much much less.

Knowing what I do, I cannot but speak about how a technology product is being crafted and architected in a manner by industry leaders that pushes additional priced components to an unsuspecting customer. Duet is the almost the first BIG product in this category, and customers don’t really know that desktop connectivity can be done any other way except the Duet-way. And hence, this blog on Duet.

Incidentally, it is not that the flaws pointed out by me have been unnoticed by others. I have, in fact blogged here about how I felt when I found like-minded folks saying the things I have known about Duet – about limited scenarios, about it being too-much-for-too-little, about its lack of legacy support, and its lack of development tools.

I must add that I do admire SAP for its market insight and its astuteness in recognizing the need of end-users, and creating Duet. With Duet, SAP has built a serious competitive differentiation vis-à-vis Oracle. Jeff, brilliant moves here by you and the anti-Oracle team of SAP, by crafting this competitive strategy. Some day, if and when Oracle falls behind, it may find Duet had a lot to do with it. For those who are interested, here is my take on the desktop connectivity battle here and how it may affect the enterprise vendors in the future.

On technology side, I like the SAP side of the Duet middleware architecture, with its Netweaver middleware based on ESA framework, even though I struggle to understand its reason to upgrade to mySAP ERP versions. But what I really dislike is the way Microsoft has pushed in its own upgrade agenda by choosing an IBF based framework, while responding to desktop connectivity problem. Whatever Duet’s functionality is, SAP could have delivered the same without involving Microsoft. Adding Microsoft to the desktop connectivity solution has muddied the picture – added upgrades, created the need for giving piece-meal value packs, tied it up Microsoft development plans – worst, took away the development framework and tools. Including Microsoft in this project adds no value to SAP customers.

I cannot see why SAP had to do this. I asked Dennis Moore, the “father” of Duet about why SAP chose Microsoft’s IBF as its development platform here, and I have not heard from him yet.

Sangeeta

The Evolve Ads of Microsoft

2006-06-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the Evolve ads of Microsoft I spoke about in my last post. They are, ummmm, rude.

Rude to people who do not bite the carrot for the unnecesarry upgrade. People who do not want to shell out more money to keep on doing the same stuff.

Calling your own customers dinosaurs - how can that be nice ? Looks like customers need to be called filthy dirty names, complete with pre-historic pictures to jolt them into upgrading to the new versions. Microsoft sounds desperate. For more rudeness, check out the Evolve flash movie from the Microsoft site.

The recent people ready ad, though completely inane, is at least not humilating.

And SAP agrees to be a party to this kick-butt way of selling things, and wants to sing Duets about it? Why should it?

-Sangeeta

Wanna sing? Enroll for an upgrade first!

2006-05-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

I asked a question in Jason Wood’s blog some days back to Dennis Moore, General Manager, SAP and the father of Duet. I asked him why SAP chose to use IBF framework from Microsoft to build Duet, when there were existing, stable alternatives such as Office Add-in interfaces that could be coupled easily with SAPs ESA framework for providing MS Office integration. No answer yet.

I am not surprised by his silence. It is a tough one,

By choosing IBF as the development platform for Office connectivity, SAP paved way for a solid win for Microsoft. IBF is supported only on Office 2003+ Professional editions and with IBF based Duet, Microsoft would be able to force its upgrades down the throats of enterprise users – and consequently, Microsoft can share the spoils from Duet. SAP wins because it expands its user base right into the desktop space, installs and deploys it middleware, and Microsoft wins because it gets its desktop upgrades - the one thing that enterprise users have stubbornly resisted, because Office 2000+ itself is “good enough” for them.

Net net, SAP and Microsoft win. But what about the customer? What does he get for all that expensive upgrade he has to do for Duet? Firstly, he gets Office 2003 professional on his desktop, which he did not want in the first place. And he gets the fairly limited scenarios from SAP, with a promise to get more, which no doubt SAP would deliver in the fullness of time. I simply cannot see CIOs or CFOs happy about this pay-now-get-benefits later buy.

It is easy to see why Microsoft is willing to push down its own MBS team and push for Duet from external SAP. After all, Duet might - just might - achieve what its Evolve marketing program could not do. Kick butt of Office 2000+ enterprise users and get them to upgrade.

But, it is hard to see why SAP felt the need to force its customers with MS Office upgrades. Just why would SAP want to do that??

- Sangeeta

The 'Don't Touch Me" Duet from SAP/MSFT vs "Build It As You Please" from others

2006-05-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

As pointed out by Josh Greenbaum of ZDnet in this post, Project Harmony from IBM connects Notes to SAP and multiple other data sources. Is'nt that great? I mean, how many customers have no other application system other than SAP? That any desktop application technology should be multi-rooted, and connect to several data sources, is surely a no-brainer.

Better, Harmony can be changed out customer site, using Lotus tools - as declared by Rocky Oliver here. As Rocky observes " Duet is a "closed" application, meaning that you cannot modify it at all - you either use it as-is, or you don't use it. " Without doubt, the approach followed by IBM, and my firm, Extensio for desktop integration, that come along with its development tools, is far more extensible and flexible than Duet. Although Harmony works only on Notes, and that makes it unusable by most enterprise users who are on MS Office, it certainly is built better.

I was amused by the comparison of effort required by Duet and Harmony. Rocky claims Harmony was done by two/three engineers - while Duet took 2 whole years with hundreds of engineers in the making. But that is another story.

-Sangeeta

Connected Excel: Different perspectives

2006-05-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

Connected Excel means different things to different people.

Most vendors when quizzed whether they connect with Excel would nod their heads vigorously in the affirmative. Sure, they connect with Excel. Have done it for years. Piece of cake. Easy-peasy.

But they could be meaning any of these things:
Type #1 Creating reports in Excel format: Most vendors provide an option in thier reporting application to dump the report in Excel. Once those reports are created, they are spat out on the users file system. Thats it. Done. The Excel file, then, is the usual frozen-in-time Excel file, disconnected with any application, incapable of being refreshed with fresh data.

A variant of this is when the reports are mailed out using some e-mail server to users mailboxes at specified time intervals. The

Type #2 Taking in Excel files as input: Most vendors also provide options for importing data from Excel files. Provided the excel file is in the format specified by them. Provided it lies in a specific directory. Provided it contains no other data. Not your everyday use Excel files, but files specifically created for data input purposes. You could have as well created a flat file.

Type #3 Talking to only "their own" Excel files: Some BI vendors give birth to Excel spreadsheets from their applications, with their VB code in it. This VB code acts like an umblical cord between these Born-to-BI spreadsheets and the mother BI applications. In these spreadsheets, you can refresh data from the mother app, sometimes even upload data to the mother - but these spreadsheets cannot be tampered with. They are special - and you need to take care to let them be pristine. You cannot play with them, cannot put other data into them, nothing.

Type #4 Providing web service interfaces for Excel: For Excel 2003+, vendors claim that they have web services interfaces that can be called using the web query feature of Excel. And vendors actually expect end-users, the average Joe, to make sense out of XML LOL!

There were no credible options to connect Excel with enterprise applications. Not after Extensio came in though!

There are some voices heard about Excel connectivity in SAP's and Microsoft's Duet (formerly Mendocino) , but as far as I could see in the current release, all they do at this time is provide the Type #1 type of connectivity - ie create Excel files - and with its e-mail variant. With the hype that is created and the promises I see in the Duet Colleteral, that was a bit of a let down, but I am hopeful. Surely, biggies such as SAP and Microsoft have more for this 400M strong user application!

- Sangeeta

Value Packs - The piecemeal delivery of Duet

2006-05-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

SAP announced the delivery of forthcoming value packs on Duet. And they were received enthusiastically. Or so they said.

Why do I find that so difficult to believe?

How can any customer be enthusiastic when the money that he pays for something (Office connectivity to SAP) is paid upfront, while the value is delivered in future via scheduled value packs?

More importantly, how can a customer in this time and age be enthusiastic when he is given no tools to build his own links to MS Office? Isnt this an age of web services and build-and-deploy-your- own technology, and when power-to-the-developer is critical for any purchase decision?

Folks, anyone who is evaluating Duet for implementation in their companies - take a hard look. There is plenty that is not told to you!

- Sangeeta

Voices from the Blogosphere about Duet after SAPPHIRE'06

2006-05-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

It has been interesting, reading the Blogoshpere post about Duet after the Sapphire. I found some of my observations on Duet shared by other fellow bloggers.

Jason Wood posted this incisive blog on hurdles in the path of Duet adoption, with a critical one being of whether Duet would allow other parties, and data sources to get involved in providing Office connectivity. With only a "duet", when end-users are likely to want a orchestra, this Duet might just sing flat!

Ismael Ghalimi posted about how it could become really important for support for legacy SAP and MS Office to drive adoption of MS-Office connectivity. His excitement about the possibility to extend Duet using web services interfaces may however come a cropper. With the public trouble brewing between Microsoft Snap-ins and Duet, I wonder if SAP and Microsoft would invite other third parties to add to the chaos. Duet is likely to end up being a severely restricted bridge, with only "value packs" travelling on it.

My guess is, Duet is a heavy marketing and sales driven initiative, with each of the parties salivating about the huge upgrade revenues, and the additional user licenses. The fact that the end-user gets value in such a limited way , which I posted about earlier, does not bother any of them.

Hopefully, the customer will know better.

- Sangeeta

Connected Desktop? Wazzat?

2006-05-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

What I define as "The Desktop" is the machine that sits on our tables, is used almost exlusively by us, and the runs Windows and MS Office. I know, I know, there are plenty of other non-Microsoft users, but most people - as it is for me - this desktop-microsoft linkage is a given.

Our desktop has two spaces - a personal one, and a public one. The personal one is intensely private and has its own, quite often self created, word documents, spreadsheets, text document or any other such desktop applications. This space is barricaded inside out desktop. We want no one snooping in there. The other public one is our window to the world, looks outward, and talks to the other information entities around us - internet, enterprise applications and such like.

These two worlds talk to each other using the magic keys of Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V. With these magic keys, we take data from one space to the other, without violating its boundaries. When the data moves into our personal space, it freezes - while the public world keeps on changes, keeing synch with the changed reality.

Keeping our personal space frozen in time is irksome. To make our personal space reflect real world. we need to use the Magic Keys. We need to get up, switch windows, start another application window, get what we want from the internet or any other such data source, select the required information, use the Magic keys, format it in properly and then put it in back in our personal space. And then, do the same over and over again if we wanted the latest. Aaarrgghhhhh....

Enter the Connected Desktop. A technology need born out of the necessity of keeping our personal desktop space up-to- date with the real time world, minimizing the need to open and close windows and using the magic keys. A mechanism that lets our personal documents in Word, Excel and others be refreshed with the latest data available from the public space.

Isn't it time that we use other ways than the old Cntrl-C and Cntrl- V magic keys?

2006-05-15T04:34:00.000-07:00

Duet is built like a turnip. Scantily leaved at the top, real heavy in the middle, and tapered off root.

Duet connects up with Office at few interfaces - some links with Outlook, some promised ones with Excel, some in workflow - points of connectivity at several places, with a .net client fanning out the leafy fingers at "select" Office interface. And not just any Office - but Office 2003+ onwards.

Duet's middle consists of a stack of really heavy middleware that runs only on Windows servers- Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft .net Server, Microsoft SQL server, Active Directory, SAP Netweaver, SAP Composite Application Runtime...Whoa! That is some middle!

Duets root is what is really really thin. It can talk to only SAP, and that too only for a few transactions. Can't go into any soil, except mySAP ERP 2004+.

How would Duet meet the expectations of a Office user, built this way? Office users need roots like a banyan tree - to all data sources inside their enterprises. Need it to be like a full blown tree at the top, so that it can bring data from all back-ends to all their interfaces and branches. And they want the trunk to be strong, and something that can grow roots of its own.

Have a look at Extensio's desktop connectivity solution. Check out how it compares with Duet on the roots, the middle and the leaves.

What would you, the desktop user, rather have? A turnip or a banyan tree?

- Sangeeta

2006-05-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

Duet is a technology AFTER its time.

So says Vinnie Mirchandani, an ex-Gartner Analyst, in his blog about Duet/Mendocino. There is no one - not users, not vendors, not buyers and not even analysts that disagree that connecting up Office with enterprise information is a need whose time has been past due. People have wanted it, asked for it and salivated for it for years.

Yet, enterprise vendors and Microsoft did not provide credible, do-able options for Office users. Not till Duet. The noise over Duet is like a collective nodding of heads. In agreement over the need to get the enterprise knowledge worker access enterprise information on his tools. Not too many people have looked beyond their nodding heads to figure out just how limited or how expensive the Duet option is. Duet is limited to SAP and Microsoft, needs upgrades in both these systems, needs a lot of expensive middleware, and will be a bear to manage and deploy.

The fact that enterprise vendors did not provide credible options is really strange. Office interfaces have been hogging mindshare and time-share of users for years and years now. To connect them up to enterprise applications is surely a no-brainer. But it did not happen. Certainly not because of technology hurdles. There were options provided even in earlier Office 2000 versions that developers could use to build bridges between Office and enterprise apps. There is a whole thriving community of vendors who did just that. However, no large enterprise vendor seriously thought about the needs of desktop users. They were too busy chasing the new devices (mobile), or the new interfaces (portals) or perhaps even architectures, or buying over other players.

The entire Office users market place has been lying fallow for years.

Duet has moved on this fallow land and staked it claim on its future harvest. With Duet, SAP and Microsoft have established an early lead in the Office interface market. This market is huge. SAP executives have said that they expect Duet to not just double, or triple - but grow its user base by FOUR times. That is some market!

The desktop interface is easily the most lucrative interface market going at this time. Every person in the enterprise is a potential user, and each one of them can potentially pay for connectivity to enterprise information. Duet is the first player, but its approach is so seriously flawed that the next entrant with a leaner, meaner and extensible technology can easily obliterate the gains made by Duet. This could happen before the next wave of "value packs", as called by the Duet team are delivered.

The browser wars are over, and irrelevant. The next war will be for the desktop interfaces. It should be fun to see how it unfolds.

I am going to talk about the chinks in the armour for Duet in a while. Watch this space!

- Sangeeta

Not only is Excel disconnected, it is risky too!

2006-05-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

Using Excel is risky business. There are numerous examples of the risks shouldered by Excel usage documented at length at www.eusprig.org, a worldwide interest group focussed on this very issue.

One of the major reasons for the risks of Excel is the risks of having bad data. While this is a risk for any application (Remember the old principle of GIGO - Garbage in, Garbage out), this risk is very large in Excel, because Excel is largely populated by hand. Worse, there are no audit trails, as there are in enterprise applications. Once the data is entered in Excel, it just sits there and is emailed around.

No one knows who put the data in Excel, no one knows if someone changed it, no one knows if it is current.

A connected Excel can solve this problem in a big way. If Excel can be connected to data sources, and in a manner that does not need to user to learn complex SQL or XML, a single refresh can take away all the data risks for Excel. I presented a paper on this problem in the EuSpRIG conference last year. My co-author and I had suggested a mechanism of connecting Excel to back-end sources that can reduce the data risks of Excel to a large degree. We did build out most of what we had said. Check it out.

I heard that Microsoft is getting into the act and creating what is called as the "Excel Server" to mitigate some of the risks, and serve this very large user community. Not many details are out at this time though. It is slated for release sometime in the next few quarters.

- Sangeeta

Why Mendocino/Duet from SAP and Microsoft

2006-05-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

Who needs Duet (Formerly called Mendocino) anyway?

Can't be business users. Can't imagine them getting excited about automating their leave application process. Which is what the current implementation does. But extend the possibilites of working with enterprise application within MS Office, the user interface of choice by business users, and it begins to make perfect sense.

Makes sense only when one "extends" the possibilities of connecting Office beyond leave applications, beyond budget management and beyond SAP. Extends the desktop interface to interact with all enterprise applictions, the internet and the intranet. In a manner that is secure. And which does need one to throw away what one has and buy another piece of software.

None of this is what Duet does. Duet connects to only SAP, only a few transactions, only on Outlook, only on Office 2003 or Office 12, only for mySAP ERP 2004...

Its the ONLY that begs that question - Why do Duet, if it gives back so little for so much?

Why listen to a Duet, when you need to listen to full bodied symphony, with mutliple singers, multiple voices and multiple instruments?

- Sangeeta

Excel: The Data Island

2006-02-17T05:08:00.000-08:00

Not that this needs to be said, but here it is anyway. Excel is one of the most popular tools to be used on a Microsoft desktop. If someone is using a desktop, and is working on it for more than three hours in a day, besides using the browser, Excel is perhaps what is being used.

Using this wonderful piece of software, people build their portfolios, their contact lists, their business model, their companys financial results, their production plan, their home accounts- the list is endless. The users puts the data that needs to be worked on into Excel and get cracking. This wonderful piece of software sits there, on the desktop, smug, completly oblivious to the fact that there is a teeming world of information out there. Excel with its pristine, neatly laid out rows and columns, gleaming white, waits for its users to populate it. The users love its scratch-pad like flexibility so much that they spend their time heavy lifting the data from multiple sources, or worse, typing it all in, never mind working the fingers to death. And all this in times when the information superhighway is zipping by, carrying loads and loads of information. Even in these times, if you are a Excel user, YOU are the one who is going to do the work for getting the data into it. No, siree, no other options!

Amazing, isnt it? I mean, if it had'nt been for the fact that we are "used" to Excel being this way, this is the first thing we would notice about Excel, right? That it is not connected to the "rest of the world". Its a data island.

And it has stayed that way. For years and years. At least till date. Barring users who can write complex SQL queries and know XML, getting data into Excel is as manual a process as it used to be, back in the information stone age. This, for a software that is HUGELY popular and perhaps contains about 25% of the worlds data!

Ok, ok. Maybe I exagerrate. Maybe there is 5% of the worlds data in Excel files. Maybe it is 30%. Who knows - there aren't any studies that tell you where people keep their data. But most of us know intuitively know that if a day dawned when the Excel application stops reading our XLS files, it would be a bad day indeed. Very bad. For some of us, disastrous.

So, how come we don't have Excel connected to the "rest of the world"? How come we can't download our data straight into Excel, whichever the source? How come it is still so painful to populate our Excel file? How come we love the fact that we have to only type a URL to get the data we need in a browser, and continue to be resigned to the painful Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V where Excel is concerned?

Makes one muse, does'nt it?