Microsoft Completes BizTalk Server 2000

As reported by Paul Thurrott, Microsoft announced the completion of BizTalk Server 2000, its XML-enabled Business-to-Business (B2B) solution for companies of all sizes, and the final 2.0 release of the BizTalk Framework, which specifies how businesses should implement XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) in their processes. BizTalk allows corporations to integrate, manage, and automate dynamic business processes using simple graphical tools, and integrate internal applications with external businesses. It will become widely available sometime this month.

"BizTalk Server 2000 is signed, sealed and delivered, and ready to solve the industry's biggest IT challenge of integrating disparate applications and businesses into a single solution," says Chris Atkinson, the vice president of the .NET Developer and Enterprise Solutions Group at Microsoft. "The powerful capabilities of BizTalk will make it fundamentally easier to build the next generation of corporate and Web solutions. BizTalk is enabling the new agile enterprise by allowing companies to quickly react to customer demands, competitive pressures and changing trading partner relationships."

Microsoft is offering two versions of BizTalk Server. The Standard Edition, targeted at small and medium businesses, supports integrating up to five internal applications with up to five external business services. It will cost about $5000 per CPU. The Enterprise Edition is targeted at large corporations and has unlimited integration capabilities. Enterprise Edition supports multiple processors and clusters, and will cost about $25,000 per CPU.