News
BizTalk Server Ready to Go
- By Scott Bekker
- December 13, 2000
The latest addition to Microsoft Corp.’s .NET server arsenal
is ready to go, with
Microsoft’s
Tuesday release to manufacturing of BizTalk Server 2000.
The purpose of BizTalk is to unify various programs and
services and Web-enable them, allowing companies to move their businesses
online quickly.
"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," Steve Garone, an IDC analyst, was
quoted as saying in a Microsoft press release. “The BizTalk Enterprise and
Standard editions will help empower customers of all sizes to integrate and
orchestrate throughout the digital economy."
There are two versions of BizTalk Server 2000 being
released. For large corporations, there is the enterprise edition, which
supports multiple processors and a clustered server environment, and will run
$24,999 per processor. The standard version, without multiple processor support
and unable to run across a cluster, will cost $4,999 per CPU.
BizTalk Server, like all the new .NET servers, leverages XML
as its core technology. One of BizTalk’s main selling points is its ability to
help companies shave weeks or months off the time needed to get its products or
services online. John Wall, CTO of HealthAxis.com, one of the 50 customers
already using BizTalk in their operations, states in the press release how the
product has helped streamline production.
"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,” Wall was quoted as saying. “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 should be available for purchase
sometime next month. - Keith Ward
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.