[Macpartners] Macintosh SAPgui 7.10 release project underway

[David M Rosenberg]

Good afternoon,

Information Services and Technology is initiating a project to release
a new Macintosh (Mac) SAPgui 7.10 to the MIT community. Mac SAPgui
7.10 will be supported on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macintoshes
with either Tiger (MacOS X 10.4.9 or later) or Leopard (MacOS X 10.5.1
or later). IS&T expects to release an installer for Mac SAPgui 7.10
during the first quarter of calendar 2008, once testing has been
completed

New features in Mac SAPgui 7.10 include:
----------------------------------------
* Support for Leopard (MacOS X 10.5.1 or later)
* "Field History" - the ability to easily select and re-enter a value
  that you had previously entered in the same field
  (This is a Windows SAPgui feature that is new in the Mac SAPgui.)
* An improved interface for setting user preferences

Note: Mac SAPgui 7.10 also includes fixes for bugs found in earlier
versions.

Recommendations:
----------------
IS&T recommends that you WAIT and not upgrade to Leopard until IS&T
announces full support for both Leopard and Mac SAPgui 7.10 in early
2008. If you have a new Macintosh with Leopard already installed, a
temporary solution is to use Citrix to run the SAPgui.

Status of Mac SAPgui versions:
------------------------------
When Mac SAPgui 7.10 is released, it will be required for Leopard and
recommended for Tiger (because of the bug fixes).

Mac SAPgui 7.00 Rev 3, which is currently available on MIT's software
distribution page, is supported on Tiger, but is not supported on
Leopard (MacOS X 10.5). SAP's official support for Mac SAPgui 7.00
ends on January 1, 2008. IS&T will probably retire it during 2008
(since it won't be supported by SAP).

Mac SAPgui 6.40 only runs on PowerPC Macs. It is not recommended and
is no longer available on MIT's software distribution page.

Recruiting beta testers:
------------------------
After we receive the final version of Mac SAPgui 7.10 and the release
team completes some testing with it, we would like more people to test
it before we release it to the MIT community. We'd like testers using
all the supported combinations of Tiger and Leopard on PowerPC and
Intel Macintoshes. If you would like to be a community beta tester
(and you understand and are able to accept the risks of using beta
software), please contact us at "sapgui-release at mit.edu" and let us
know of your interest and which hardware/software combination(s) you
would be using.

More information:
-----------------
For more information on the project, please see the project notebook
at: <http://web.mit.edu/swrt/releases/sapguimac710>.

Who to contact:
---------------
If you have questions, suggestions, would be interested in being a
beta tester, or would like to participate in the release project in
some other way, please contact the release team via email to
"sapgui-release at mit.edu".

All the Best,

-- 
/David M Rosenberg         <rosenberg at mit.edu>         1-617-253-8054
MIT / IS&T / Student & Admin Information Systems / Technical Services
Mac SAPgui Product Release Coordinator, on behalf of the Release Team