According to a source, American Idol top dog Nigel Lythgoe wants Mr. President to come on the show to perform the full song with the original singer, Mr. Al Green.

Nigel actually recently tweeted about the subject.

@BarackObama we loved your vocal performance so much we’d love to invite you on to #AmericanIdolthis Season for a duet with Al Green.

— Nigel Lythgoe (@dizzyfeet) January 30, 2012

Intended to bridge the gaps between the companies’ software, Duet captured the attention of Computerworld, which deemed it worthy of a “Special Report” in the midst of the “2006 Computerworld Horizon Awards.”

Mark Levitt, the Program VP for Collaborative Computing and the Enterprise Workplace at IDC, was quoted in a press release about the software when it was first launched on May 2. (There has only been one other official press release about Duet since then – the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission adopted the program.)

“Duet is a business mashup of Microsoft Office applications with SAP enterprise information and processes that can improve the quality and speed of decision making and workforce productivity,” Levitt said. “With Duet, SAP will be easier to access and more relevant for many more users who spend their workdays in the Microsoft’ Office.”

The Computerworld article included a comment from Dennis Moore, the executive vice president and general manager of emerging solutions at SAP, about Duet’s origins.

“Customers wanted the ease and familiarity of their Office environment and yet wanted the ability to access and use the robust, secure business processes from the SAP back-end systems,” Moore said.

“As Web services and SOA became integrated features of both companies’ product lines, the feasibility of providing contextual business information from SAP within Office 2003 increased, and the idea of Duet was born,” Moore finished.

Since its inception, the program has gone through a limited initial release, with a “broad release,” according to Computerworld, “scheduled for this summer.”

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Duet has already been installed in about 100 joint sites for testing. These included companies such as Atmel and Infosys.

Atmel CIO Mike Sisois says the semiconductor manufacturer will probably install the finished version in July. “For Atmel,” he says, “this is a tremendous value add.”

Duet’s target audience is those users who rarely run SAP applications, but frequently make use of Office. One goal is to enable access to SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) data through the Outlook interface.

Other touted aspects of the program include budget monitoring, time management, leave management, and organization management.

The product should require little to no training, and will offer users a familiar environment.

“Duet is a business mashup of Microsoft Office applications with SAP enterprise information and processes that can improve the quality and speed of decision making and workforce productivity,” said Mark Levitt, vice president for IDC’s collaboration and enterprise workplace research.

The program is likely to be a success, but if nothing else, its origins are notable. SAP and Microsoft are frequently competitors, and a yearlong cooperation was unexpected and surprising.

The companies will need to continue to work together, though, for Duet to receive the support it (or any new program) will need.

It looks like they will, at least for a while. SAP and Microsoft should offer two Duet value packs later in the year. These are intended to aid in recruitment management, travel management, analytics, purchasing management, and sales activity management.

The packs will be compatible with both the next version of mySAP ERP and the 2007 release of Microsoft Office System.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.