Do we need SharePoint functional consultants?

Using SharePoint BDC to access SAP data

Integrating SharePoint social networking with your ERP system

New announcement on Duet Enterprise
There has been a new announcement from Microsoft on the Duet product. The product, which is a joint effort between SAP and Microsoft, has been slightly rebranded to be called Duet Enterprise. Duet Enterprise promises to deliver standard SAP functionality to business users through their day-to-day productivity tools such as Outlook and SharePoint.The main difference from previous versions of the product is that Duet Enterprise is based on a fundamentally new architecture leveraging SharePoint 2010 as t

Interview with Peter Chapman on the ZOA integration framework for SAP
Integrating with SAP from other UI platforms is increasingly common and this integration can be facilitated in many different ways. Regardless of the approach taken and middleware used, one of the bigger challenges is the granularity of the SAP APIs (BAPIs/RFCs) which are extremely hard to work with for developers from other platforms. ZOA is an open source initiative that aims to address the SAP integration challenge at the root of the problem by providing a framework for exposing SAP services that are more reusable and easier to consume for outsiders.

Day 4 of the SharePoint Conference 2009
The last day of the SharePoint Conference was a short one. After breakfast I had a closer look at another third-party product. AgilePoint has a workflow solution that includes activities that can be wired up to SAP BAPIs through their integrated BAPI explorer. The interesting part about their product is that it presents a workflow solution for SharePoint without leaving a footprint on the SharePoint infrastructure itself.Due to my travel arrangements, I only managed to fit in one session on this last day of the conference. I watched

Day 3 of the SharePoint Conference 2009
Yet another day of non-stop SharePoint activities has passed at the SharePoint Conference. And it has been non-stop SharePoint indeed. There is even a SharePoint channel on the TV in the hotel room, so when you sneak away for a little quiet time away from the other 8,000 SharePoint enthusiasts you can still get fed with SharePoint content.My first session of the day was a bit different, yet very valuable. It was about the art of SharePoint storytelling and how selling and implementing SharePoint should focus more on the business concepts rather than the product features. Over the last couple of years, there

Day 2 of the SharePoint Conference 2009
The second day of the SharePoint Conference was a highly productive one from my perspective as it allowed me to focus on integration with SAP attending sessions, meeting people and exploring third-party products all relevant to SAP.The first session I attended was an overview of the SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services (BCS) which is the evolution of the Business Data Catalog (BDC). The session covered the significant improvements in all of the three key investment areas of presentation, connectivity and tooling. With new components including a client-side runtime for Office connectivity and offli