... where's the SAP connector for Microsoft .NET going to?

... endless discussion. After having a lot of customer meetings and feedback in Orlando where we have been for SAPPHIRE last week it seems that the need (for the connector) is still there (not only for existing apps). The plan for a smooth transition to ESA is still not part of the just released PDK for .NET 2.5, no explorer plugin for Visual Studio for ESA nor BOR components. So in theory it's easy: Take ESA and forget about lagacy apps. Reality is more different so if you plan to develop personalized transactional apps you have to add another middleware component to the service today (could be XI or BizTalk with the respective adapters). Even if the BizTalk adapter for mySAP business suite is for free now and can handle transactions, exposing them on the WSE adapter to the web (handling QoS at least), it adds another layer in your architecture. Easy if the products are already there but if not?

If you run business critical apps on the connector please drop me a mail so we get an impression if the connector is still in heavy use (ctsc@microsoft.com).

Otherwise bet on WebServices and expose them under systems >6.40 as a WebService directly to the Web. Jürgen will have a WebCast on that today ( https://www.microsoft-sap.com/doc/attendee_invitation.doc)

. He'll record it for those of you are not able to attend (Acension day is a public holiday in Germany) - see Jürgen is really global thinking :-)

For extensive use we are on a paper describing the same architecture end-to-end from an Office app over WinFX to SAP WebServices (could be ESA later on). Stay tuned, we'll have it on www.microsoft-sap.com in a couple of days.

Hope to see some of you next week in Paris,

-Tilo