REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 12, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing (RTM), pricing and licensing of Microsoft® BizTalk™
Server 2000. Today, more than 50 customers are building a broad array of Internet-enabled business solutions that integrate applications, platforms and businesses over the Internet. The latest release in the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, BizTalk Server 2000 is the industry’s only comprehensive solution that unites enterprise application integration (EAI), business-to-business integration (B2B) and BizTalk Orchestration technology to allow companies to easily build dynamic business processes that span applications and organizational boundaries.
“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,”
said Chris Atkinson, 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.”
Pricing and General Availability of BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise and Standard Editions
“The real value of Web-enabling an enterprise only comes when every application within the value chain, both inside and out, is orchestrated into a single solution,”
said Steve Garone, program vice president, Application Development and Deployment at International Data Corp. (IDC).
“Microsoft understands those requirements, and the BizTalk Enterprise and Standard editions will help empower customers of all sizes to integrate and orchestrate throughout the digital economy.”
BizTalk Server 2000 will be offered in two versions to meet the diverse needs of today’s enterprise customers:
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Enterprise Edition. BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is targeted at large organizations, trading hubs and digital marketplaces and has support for integrating unlimited internal applications with unlimited trading partners over the Internet. BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition will support multiple processor and clustering deployments to handle even the largest transaction volumes. The suggested retail price for BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is $24,999 per CPU.
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Standard Edition. BizTalk Server 2000 Standard Edition is targeted at small and medium-sized organizations and has support for integrating up to five internal applications with up to five external trading partners, such as exchanges or digital marketplaces. Intended for small to medium-sized transaction volumes, the standard edition will not have support for multiprocessor or clustered deployments. The suggested retail price of BizTalk Server 2000 Standard Edition is $4,999 per CPU.
BizTalk Server 2000 is scheduled to be generally available in January 2001.
More Than 50 Customers in Production on BizTalk Server 2000
From Web-enabling legacy IT investments to orchestrating business processes over the Internet, more than 50 customers are building mission-critical BizTalk Server 2000 solutions in a number of diverse application integration scenarios. Early adopter customers are using the power of the most comprehensive XML-enabled integration and orchestration solution on the market.
B2B and Back-End Integration
Companies need to orchestrate transactions throughout the enterprise to streamline business processes and reduce manual re-entering of data. Traditional point-to-point B2B solutions are not equipped to integrate the entire business process and have fallen short in delivering that critical piece of functionality. OSRAM SYLVANIA, the world’s second largest lighting manufacturer, is using BizTalk Server 2000 to connect with multiple trading partners, while seamlessly integrating those online orders with their fulfillment and back-end SAP systems.
“BizTalk Server 2000 is going to have a profound effect on a market that is cluttered with products which are difficult to implement and extremely expensive to buy and maintain,”
said Mehrdad Laghaeian, CIO of OSRAM SYLVANIA.
“We wanted to enable our customers to buy from us electronically and to integrate with our back-end systems. BizTalk allowed us to do this in a matter of weeks, not months.”
Connectivity to Digital Marketplaces and XML Translation
Rapid connectivity to digital marketplaces and effortless XML translation have become business imperatives for companies participating in exchanges and supply-chain integration initiatives. Aircast Inc., a leading manufacturer of orthopedic devices, is using BizTalk Server 2000 to XML-enable its EDI system to receive orders from medical marketplaces on the Internet.
“As a small company, we’re totally focused on our product and don’t have the resources to purchase lots of expensive EAI and B2B solutions,”
said Sue McKay, vice president of Customer and Information Systems at Aircast.
“We’re building with BizTalk Server 2000 because it combines all of that functionality in a product we can afford. It is going to make true e-commerce accessible not just to the largest companies, but to all companies.”
Web-Enable Legacy Investments
Web-enabling legacy investments is a crucial component of migrating a business to the Internet. BizTalk Server 2000, unlike most
“rip and replace”
products, can seamlessly integrate with existing IT investments and deliver secure data throughout the enterprise and across the Internet. HealthAxis.com provides solutions to insurance companies and insurance distributors that enable consumers to quote, purchase and manage health-care policies via the Web. HealthAxis.com is utilizing BizTalk Server 2000 to leverage current legacy mainframes while significantly reducing the complexity of applications.
“Like most companies, we are dealing with a number of serious integration challenges as we move our business online,”
said John Wall, CTO of HealthAxis.com, a provider of online health insurance.
“To fulfill customer requests, we used BizTalk Server 2000 to integrate up to nine back-end legacy and mainframe systems as well as integrate with all of our insurance providers. In our first project alone, BizTalk helped us reduce one of our applications from 5,000 lines of code to 100. You just can’t put a price tag on that kind of efficiency.”
BizTalk Server 2000 also serves as the cornerstone for Microsoft’s E-Business Acceleration initiative. Unveiled Nov. 6, 2000, E-Business Acceleration is an integrated B2B initiative for empowering suppliers of any size to effectively extend their selling capabilities through multiple direct and indirect Internet-based channels. More information on BizTalk Server or the E-Business Acceleration initiative is available online at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/ .
BizTalk Framework 2.0 Published
Microsoft today also published the final version of its BizTalk Framework 2.0 specification. Based on industry standards for data exchange and security such as SOAP 1.1 (Simple Object Access Protocol), XML and S/MIME, the BizTalk Framework enables the secure and reliable exchange of business documents over the Internet. Development of the BizTalk Framework is overseen by the BizTalk Steering Committee, which comprises industry partners, consortiums and standards bodies.
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“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.
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