• Availability of BizTalk RFID Mobile for all new customers and current customers with SA
• ESB Guidance 2.0 will also be available - http://msdn.microsoft.com/esb
  

For more information go to:

• BizTalk Website: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/
• BizTalk Server Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalk_server_team_blog/
• RFID Website: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/rfid.aspx
• Steven Martin, Senior Director, Developer Platform Division blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/default.aspx
  

Key Areas

BizTalk Server 2009 Beta:

• BizTalk Server 2009 is Microsoft's core enterprise connectivity solution, which releases on schedule of every two years, and continues to extend capabilities to core process management technologies both in and outside of the corporate boundaries.
• Microsoft continues to listen to its BizTalk Server 2009 customers and will optimize feedback from the beta release for future BizTalk Server releases
• RFID Mobile:
• BizTalk RFID Mobile extends RFID to the mobility industry to demonstrate strong customer support with RFID intelligence on devices running on Win CE/Win Mobile enabling businesses to make decisions in real-time.

FAQ

Q: What did Microsoft announce today?

A: Today at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration (AADI) Summit, Microsoft Corp. announced the general availability of BizTalk RFID Mobile and BizTalk RFID Standards Pack, as well as the first public beta of BizTalk Server 2009 for download and an updated version of its architecture patterns and practices guidance, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Guidance 2.0. Microsoft has made these investments in the BizTalk Server product family to enable customers to more efficiently connect applications and to provide customers with a clearer, actionable view into their day-to-day operations.

Q. When will the products be available?

A: The BizTalk Server 2009 public beta and ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP are available now at http://www.codeplex.com/esb for community feedback. The final products are slated to ship in the first half of CY09.  Evaluation versions of BizTalk RFID Mobile and the BizTalk RFID Standards Pack are available at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/rfid-mobile.aspx and http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/rfid.aspx respectively.

Q: What new functionally will be delivered in BizTalk Server 2009?

A:  BizTalk Server 2009 supports the latest Microsoft platform technologies, including Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 SP1, SQL Server 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. These platform updates enable greater scalability and reliability, and many advances in the latest developer tools.

This BizTalk Server release will also deliver additional customer-requested capabilities around enterprise connectivity, including:

• New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
• Enhanced service enablement of applications (through new and enhanced adapters for LOB applications, databases, and legacy/host systems)
• Enhanced service enablement of "edge" devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile
• Enhanced interoperability and connectivity support for industry protocols (like SWIFT, EDI, HL7 etc)
• SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer's implementations
  

You can find more details about BizTalk Server 2009 at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/roadmap.aspx

Q: What is next for BizTalk Server after BizTalk Server 2009?

A:  The charter of BizTalk Server remains consistent - it allows the Microsoft application platform to connect  and interoperate with other kinds of systems - LOB systems, legacy systems, smart devices (RFID), and B2B integration (SWIFT, EDI, etc.).  This has been the focus of BizTalk Server since it was initially released back in 2000 and continues to be its charter going forward.

At this point it's too early to comment on the specific features that will be part of the BizTalk Server "7" release; however, you can find details about general priorities for BizTalk Server at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/roadmap.aspx.  We're in the middle of early planning on BizTalk Server "7" and will have more information to share about the specific scope of that release.

Q: What is BizTalk RFID Mobile?

A: BizTalk RFID Mobile is an RFID platform for Windows Mobile and CE. BizTalk RFID Mobile consists of a runtime engine, tools, and components to develop, deploy, and manage RFID solutions on mobile devices.  In combination with BizTalk Server RFID, the mobility release provides a platform for real-time decision making.  BizTalk RFID Mobile extends management and event processing to mobile devices and allows communication between the server and mobile platforms.

Q. What is the price and licensing for BizTalk RFID Mobile?

A: BizTalk RFID Mobile is available to all BizTalk Server 2006 R2 customers with Software Assurance as well as new BizTalk Server 2006 R2 customers who purchase licenses with Software Assurance. Our customers and partners told us that mobile RFID offerings are used in conjunction with a server product.  As a result, we included BizTalk RFID Mobile with each edition of BizTalk so that our customers can achieve the benefits of RFID mobile solutions without incurring undue costs. For BizTalk Server customers with Software Assurance this is a great opportunity to adopt a new product that can deliver an economic value today. When BizTalk Server 2009 becomes generally available, the customers will be able to acquire BizTalk RFID Mobile without software assurance.

Q: Is BizTalk RFID Mobile dependant on BizTalk Server? Can't I just use a free solution that's available rather than use BizTalk Server?

A:  BizTalk RFID Mobile and BizTalk Server are better together.  Using BizTalk RFID Mobile and BizTalk Server in tandem you can capture data on a mobile device and then send the RFID data back to BizTalk Server for filtering and the application of business rules.  There is no need to rewrite complex event filtering and business rule logic on the device as that functionality is already provided by BizTalk Server.  We have taken a platform approach that will ensure that you can write your mobile applications once and run them on multiple devices in addition to local device management, store and forward, and SQL Sink capabilities, which reduce your TCO.

BizTalk RFID Mobile and BizTalk RFID Standards Pack are a standard part of all editions of BizTalk Server 2009.  Given the intense interest in these offerings from our existing and new customers we decided to make them available now to BizTalk Server 2006 R2 customers with software assurance as well as new BizTalk Server 2006 R2 customers who purchase licenses with Software Assurance.

Rather than charge a per device fee, we included BizTalk RFID Mobile with all editions of BizTalk because we wanted to make it easier for customers to adopt mobile RFID solutions.  RFID is a fundamental enabler for business processes and should not be viewed as an isolated silo, which is why we have included our fixed and mobile RFID offerings standard in all editions of BizTalk.

Q: What is ESB Guidance?

A: The Microsoft ESB Guidance (first released in November 2007) provides architectural guidance, patterns, practices, and a set of BizTalk Server R2 and .NET components to simplify the development of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) on the Microsoft platform and to allow Microsoft customers to extend their own messaging and integration solutions.  For additional information on the current 1.0 version please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc487894.aspx.

We are announcing today the first public CTP release of the Microsoft ESB Guidance 2.0 for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009. It incorporates many new and expanded features include the following:

• New samples:
• SSO Configuration provider for Enterprise Library 4.0
• Multiple Web Service Execution Sample
• Exception Handling Service Sample
  
• New ESB Web services:
• Generic Itinerary Services ( no itinerary header required)
• New core features:
• Alignment with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 ( Beta )
• ESB Configuration tool
• Centralized itinerary store
• Itinerary resolver components
• Itinerary forwarder pipeline component
• Itinerary selector pipeline component
• Itinerary designer
• Centralized configuration uses Enterprise Library 4.0 Configuration Block
• Centralized caching uses Enterprise Library 4.0 Caching Block
• Multiple service invocation using both messaging and orchestrations
• Itinerary BAM tracking
• Improved ESB Core engine and itinerary execution