According to Daniel Ingitaraj, marketing manager, India Subcontinent,Microsoft, BizTalk, which is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML),simplifies integration by assuming that application services and data aretwo different entities. So BizTalk systems focus on data-interchange insteadof infrastructure compatibility and automation and can be extended to alltrading partners, integrating business processes.

Microsoft BizTalk Server will make it easier for companies to take advantageof BizTalk and will enable companies to exchange data and integrateapplications over the Internet, he added.

Microsoft is investing in a broad strategy that will result in a strong setof products and services that implement the BizTalk framework, saysIngitaraj. It is supporting the BizTalk framework through a series ofproduct and collaborative initiatives with partners, customers and industryconsortia to define Biztalk `schema' - vocabulary describing businessprocess information - and to accelerate its adoption as an industrystandard. And as new XML standards emerge, contributors to the BizTalkframework will evaluate and support standards, Ingitaraj said.

In addition to data description, BizTalk also includes rules for thehandling of BizTalk data, which follow industry standards and can bemodified by software developers to implement customer BizTalk applicationsto support specific business needs.

The company plans to incorporate BizTalk schema into the Microsoft commerceplatform, the Microsoft Network (MSN) shopping services and future versionsof Office, Back Office, and other Windows products, which, if successful,could lead to another virtual monopoly.

Companies have been facing inter-operability problems with suppliers andbusiness partners, because no two businesses use the same applications inexactly the same way. Mapping business processes and then changing them inline with your business partners and solving the inter-operability problemsbetween the different systems and platforms deployed between businesspartners slows down the process and adds to the costs involved. Besides, itis unrealistic for businesses rebuild their systems from scratch in auniform manner across the supply chain in order to take advantage ofe-commerce.

Alternative apporaches to integration like EDI, object models, and shareddatabase design also have their share of problems, since they are toocomplex and lack flexibility to quickly adapt to change. However, it remainsto be seen if Biztalk can live up to its bigtalk and solve inter-operationproblems between companies.