Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft Business Process Alliance Enables Mainstream Adoption of Business Process Management:

At the Gartner Business Process Management Summit, Microsoft Corp. today announced the formation of the Microsoft Business Process Alliance (BPA), which extends the benefits of business process management (BPM) to an array of companies and offers enhanced functionality to existing Microsoft customers. The Business Process Alliance is a group of 10 industry-leading software vendors focused on making BPM solutions more broadly accessible and helping companies take advantage of BPM tools based on the Microsoft® platform. Through this alliance, a broad range of customers will benefit from a powerful set of end-to-end tools for automating and optimizing business processes. The initial members of the BPA are AmberPoint, Ascentn, IDS Scheer, Fair Isaac, Global360, InRule, Metastorm, PNMsoft, RuleBurst and SourceCode Technology Holdings Inc. Microsoft also announced enhancements to its Windows® Workflow Foundation technology in the .NET Framework 3.0, adding support for the upcoming BPEL 2.0 standard and further providing capabilities and tools for developers and independent software vendors building BPEL-enabled workflow applications.
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Microsoft also announced a road map for the adoption of the BPEL 2.0 standard in Windows Workflow Foundation to help drive industry interoperability and drive greater mainstream adoption of BPEL-enabled workflow applications. Microsoft will enable further integration between Windows Workflow Foundation and its BizTalk® Server product as part of the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 release, which will be generally available in the third quarter of 2007.

The roadmap for BPEL incoporation in Workflow comes from Microsoft’s Paul Andrew:

In March 2007 Microsoft plans to release a CTP of a set of BPEL activities for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). This will be called BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation March CTP and the CTP release will implement the BPEL 1.1 specification. The final release of BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation will implement the OASIS BPEL 2.0 standard and is planned for release in Q4 of calendar year 2007.

The download will be separate from the .NET Framework and it will be required for developing BPEL based workflows in Visual Studio. The same download will provide runtime operations for executing BPEL based workflows.
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The next major version of BizTalk Server will be built on Windows Workflow Foundation. This was announced back when Windows Workflow Foundation was first disclosed in September 2005. BizTalk Server will be able to take advantage of these BPEL activities at that time to also allow for BPEL 2.0 support. At that time both Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server will support BPEL 2.0.

Since this isn’t completely obvious, here’s the net:

• March 2007: CTP of Workflow add-on that supports BPEL 1.1
• 3Q 2007: BizTalk 2006 R2 will be released and will still be based on its own proprietary workflow engine but will have enhanced interoperation with Workflow Foundation and thereby BPEL as it is supported.
• 4Q 2007: The final release of BPEL for Workflow which implements BPEL 2.0.
• Later: The next release of BizTalk will be a major new version based on Workflow Foundation and thereby gain full BPEL 2.0 support.

What I haven’t mentioned is the role of Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server 2007 which are both based on Workflow. For information on that I recommend David Chappell’s document,”Microsoft and BPM: A Technology Overview,” which is available on the Microsoft BPM web site.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has the buzz:

Take TellMe off the IPO list for this year - We have multiple sources saying that Microsoft has acquired the company. We’re trying to find the price now.
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More details to follow. See our recent coverage of the company here.

There is more background at the links, but in a nutshell, Tellme provides a number of 411 services for mobile phones. It seems like an odd match given their open standards platform and Java mobile phone client, but odder things have happened.

Update: That was quick - rumor denied at the TechCrunch link.

Over the weekend, I mentioned a NY Times profile of Microsoft virtualization software competitor, VMware, that seemed laden with “Microsoft is an unfair competitor” rhetoric. Today comes word that VMware has published a whitepaper on their website that could well be titled “J’accuse” which details Microsoft’s anti-competitive licensing and distribution practices related to virtualization. Most of what is mentioned is familiar to those who follow the industry, but having them lay out the 7 accusations so concisely makes one wonder when the next shoe will drop. As Mary Jo Foley remarks:

My biggest question, after reading The Times story and the VMware white paper is when will VMware file a lawsuit? It sounds like VMWare — in spite of its 80 percent virtualization market share — is gearing up to lodge one heck of an antitrust complaint against Microsoft. (I wonder if VMWare parent EMC Corp. is really up for that kind of move. Maybe.)

Presumably VMware isn’t marshalling their arguments for the exercise, so what will it be - lawsuits or complaints to the various antitrust watchdogs or both?

Microsoft today announced the acquisition of Medstory:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has agreed to acquire Medstory Inc., a privately held company based in Foster City, Calif., that develops intelligent Web search technology specifically for health information. The acquisition represents a strategic move for Microsoft in the consumer health search arena and signals a long-term commitment toward the development of a broader consumer health strategy. Medstory employees will join the Health Solutions Group, a recently formed division at Microsoft that will manage product development and delivery. Financial terms were not disclosed, as part of the agreement between the organizations.
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Unlike results from most search engines, Medstory’s results are based on intuitive search technology, which provides prequalified information to consumers and health professionals conducting health-related research. This unique approach provides users with intelligent guides to help refine and better target their searches. Users receive organized content that is more relevant to their search criteria and that enables better health-related decisions.

Healthcare IT is always touted as a hot area, but never seems to get the buzz, perhaps because processing medical paperwork is inherently boring despite the opportunities that abound. My last mention in relation to Microsoft was last July when the Health Services group it self was announced in connection with another acquisition. On the the other hand, Medstory seems to have very little to do with health care per se, and more to do with search technology.

Todd Bishop has more on the Medstory acquisition (it’s only a 10 person company) and more on Microsoft’s Health Solutions group which had a variety of announcements today at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Conference including the broad availability of Microsoft’s Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint for service providers.

Update 2/27: In a talk to anlaysts, Ray Ozzie indicated “that while initially the Medstory technology will be worked into the company’s health solutions group, ultimately ‘it will be woven into the mainline search.’”