Will BizTalk Server be first class citizen? Yes, Microsoft will strongly invest in BizTalk Server now and in the future!

Almost two years ago I posted a story on the BizTalk roadmap and made a statement that it here to stay. I ended the post with:

“My thinking with current evolution of BizTalk is that it will become a first class citizen with Microsoft offerings.”

I am not Nostradamus or a fortuneteller yet my feeling back then told that BizTalk is not dead yet. With such a strong and vibrant community and over 10.000 customers I could not imaging that Microsoft would stop investing in it. Another story that confirmed my thinking and of many others I think was the well known and written post “Is BizTalk Server Going Away At Some Point? Yes. Dead? Nope.” by Richard Seroter July last year.

Year 2012 Microsoft is still investing in BizTalk and bringing out the next version beginning of 2013. A lot of features/enhancements are revealed during TechEd North America. Kent Weare, BizTalk MVP from Canada has been cranking out some excellent posts on what Microsoft will be bringing out in the near future or what has been released now. His focus during the TechEd has been mainly been on integration and he elaborates a lot on Microsoft strategy (see also my post on Future BizTalk Server Release and Microsoft Integration Strategy). Here is list of blog post (reports) Kent wrote while attending the TechEd NA:
Sessions given during TechEd can be watched online through channel9. Some of interesting ones concerning integration, BizTalk and IaaS are:
I think with the BizTalk Server community and enterprises running BizTalk will be filled with joy and relief hearing the news from Microsoft on its plans with integration. The product BizTalk Server is still standing strong and Microsoft will be investing in now with the upcoming release and beyond that. I believe it will become a first class citizen with the Microsoft Integration technology stack.

Cheers,

- Steef-Jan

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes, good to see the announcements, and comments from the dev community. I remember hearing that "BizTalk 2004 will be the last BizTalk version", and we have been through the rise and demise of the "Oslo" and "AppFabric" brandings that were going to replace BizTalk with something different. The only thing that has been consistant over the years is that BizTalk has improved with every release, and is seeing more adoption each year...

Alan Smith
6:26 AM
Unknown said…
I belive from a MS marketing standpoint that BizTalk Server has always been a first class citizen.

Take a look on CodePlex, TechNet Wiki, and the vast number of blogs devoted to BizTalk. Add the number of groups devoted to BizTalk here on LinkedIn. The BizTalk community as a whole has made BizTalk sure that BizTalk will always be a First Class Citizen.
7:18 AM
Walter Michel said…
Great set of links to all the BizTalk (and Azure EAI) TechEd! Many folks at TechEd want to keep the new Azure functionality under the BizTalk heading. Since the BizTalk team is implementing much of the Azure EAI stuff it makes some sense. But the Azure EAI offerings are taking aspects of BizTalk and breaking them out into modular components within Azure that can be mixed and matched. It will not be a monolithic server based solution like BizTalk. So calling all the separate integration modules in Azure "BizTalk" may not make as much sense.

I personally hope they stick with calling it BizTalk. Easier to Google that way... :)
6:45 PM
Ankur Billore said…
your comments are always enlightning.
6:17 AM
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