Rating: 
Summary: Need this Book if You're Moving to B2B
Review: As the other reviewer stated, this book is really the second edition of the EAI book by the same author. However, there is enough new content in this book, focused on B2B, that make it well worth the price. For instance, how XML, XSLT and BizTalk function in the world of application integration. Also, which technology to leverage depending on the situation. I found the way the author links EAI and B2B application integration approaches and technology particularly useful, and cleared up a lot of issues for me. I would recommend this book to anyone working on EAI or B2B projects, like me. If you already own the EAI book, this book should be next on your list to read.
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Summary: A Great Book for the System Architect
Review: I like the level of detail provided in the book. At this point in my current design task, I don't need detailed coding examples, I need good high-level explanations of the ways my customer can interface with the outside world (and between business units). This is what this book provides. This book doesn't answer all of my questions, but it does provide all of the information I need to make some intelligent design decisions.Many of my team members swear by Dave's previous book, Enterprise Application Integration, and we have already incorporated many of the concepts from that book into our new enterprise-wide architecture. I'm certain that in the coming months, B2B Application Integration will have just as significant an impact on our work as we expand our scope to include our external customers.
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Summary: Great all around book on Systems Integration
Review: I'm currently using this book for a graduate level systems integration course that I teach at the University of Detroit Mercy. I couldn't be happier. While there are areas that get a bit technical for those who have not worked in IT, it provides all of the information necessary to make educated decisions about numerous B2B solutions. Coupled with the book "Building B2B Applications with XML", the reader has everything they need.
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Summary: The B2B Bible
Review: If you're looking for the bible on B2B application integration, or just application integration in general, this is the book for you. The author does a great job in bringing very complex subject matter to an understandable level, including the illusive notion of middleware. I've read other books on middleware, and this book beats them all. However, the value of this book is not the middleware discussion, but the overview of application integration and its use as a mechanism to move information, in real-time, within and between businesses. The author covers the types of application integration for B2B, enabling technology, approaches, use cases, patterns, and emerging standards including XSLT and RosettaNet. I really liked the discussion of supply chain integration and how it relates to B2B application integration. It's a winner. I'll be going back to this book time after time. My copy already appears a bit raged out.
Rating:
Summary: The B2B Bible
Review: If you're looking for the bible on B2B application integration, or just application integration in general, this is the book for you. The author does a great job in bringing very complex subject matter to an understandable level, including the illusive notion of middleware. I've read other books on middleware, and this book beats them all. However, the value of this book is not the middleware discussion, but the overview of application integration and its use as a mechanism to move information, in real-time, within and between businesses. The author covers the types of application integration for B2B, enabling technology, approaches, use cases, patterns, and emerging standards including XSLT and RosettaNet. I really liked the discussion of supply chain integration and how it relates to B2B application integration. It's a winner. I'll be going back to this book time after time. My copy already appears a bit raged out.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Balance of Strategy and Technology
Review: In looking for a good book on middleware, application integration, and B2B integration, I found that this book provides most of the information I needed. This book offers both strategic and technical information, and I found that helpful with both putting a rather confusing paradigm in the proper perspective, as well as enough new technical information to figure out what works where. The bottom line is that the strategic information is worth the price of the book, and the technical information makes this book mandatory for anybody who has to integrate two or more applications. Read this book first, it will make your life a whole lot easier, it did mine.
Rating:
Summary: Balanced, clear and comprehensive - essential information
Review: Mr. Linthicum has given us a gift in the form of a book that thoroughly covers the technical aspects of B2B, and shows how it is vastly different from more traditional methods of application integration. If you carefully read and assimilate the information contained in this book you will have a clear path laid out for moving from older architectures that use EDI, point-to-point integration and other partial integration schemes to a true B2B architecture that is glued together by an encompassing middleware layer and driven by business events. Here are some of the key areas of the book that made a deep impression on me: the clear definition of B2B application integration and what it entails, a wide survey of methods based on their orientation (data, interface, method, portal and process), and the balanced discussion of both middleware and integration standards. Strengths and weaknesses of the oriented methods described in this book are particularly invaluable because the author shows the choices and trade-offs of each choice as an integration strategy. He gave the same comprehensive treatment to middleware strategies. I especially liked the discussion of integration standards because until I read this book I had the impression that XML was *the* way to extract data from databases, transform it into a common format and promote a standard for communicating among trading partners. Mr. Linthicum discusses the strengths of XML, but wisely warns against trying to make it do everything. Sort of like the adage that when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. The thrust of this book is transforming existing systems into an integrated application infrastructure that will fully support the notion of awareness of business events across all applications. This is a daunting task for architects and integrators who do not have a clean slate with which to design a ground-up architecture. The author addressed the fact that we have to live with that in which we have made heavy investments and proceed from there. This is done in the appendices that show how to integrate SAP R/3 and PeopleSoft into a cohesive B2B architecture. These examples are excellent choices with which to illustrate how it's done because they are realistic examples as opposed to contrived examples of "ideal" situations that other books show. This book is for architects and IT technical strategists, and for those of us who have technical backgrounds and need to fully understand the technologies and imperatives that are springing up around us. Mr. Linthicum is an engaging writer who packs an incredible amount of information and wisdom into this 408 page book. It easily earns 5 stars and my highest recommendation.
Rating: 
Summary: Avoid Linthicum like the plague
Review: Not only can't he write, he can't even post reviews of his own books anonymously. And what does he man by "My copy already appears a bit raged out"?
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Summary: Vendors and integration classification overview, please
Review: The good thing about this book is that it the systems architect orientation. What I miss is the lack on an integration advice depending on the sort/ type of B2B exchanges: -- How do we integrate in the Ariba, Commerce One (hosted) types of B2B exchange networks. -- How can we apply B2B integration with in the not hosted BroadVision, ATG -type of approach. Including a planning & implementation that really work. I also miss a classification of the current B2B application integration landscape in terms of vendors and tools. In Chapter 19 there is a VERY good explanation on the 5 types of B2B application integration approaches(data-oriented, application oriented, process integration oriented etc etc). I would like to have more elaboration on the mapping of these approaches on the current supporting tools & vendors...The pro's and con's of Neon, ACTA, Bea's e-Link, Mercator, Viewlocity, etc etc. Page 342, Selecting a B2B Technology is described in a good way, but more elaboration on the vendors landscape would me nice. Still, I really like this book. Chapter 12 (Java middleware standards, the role of J2ee) Chapter 17 (Using XSLT) are very useful. Despite the earlier reviews, I consider this book as more than Volume 2 on David's earlier book. I would really advice all software developers and leading architects to buy this book: If you need a good and in-depth understanding of B2B integration approaches, this book should be on your desk!
Rating:
Summary: Informative, consise, and dead on
Review: This book is a follow-up to Linthicum's book on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), and could really have been called "volume 2". Much of it is taken directly from the other book. This is actually a good thing, assuming you haven't already read the old version. The new book updates the concepts in much the same way as the EAI vendors are updating their products. (Ironically, Linthicum's company couldn't do the same.) Linthicum is a well known expert in the integration world, and speaks at seemingly every conference on the subject. A rare talent in techincal writing, he hits at what I feel is just the right level - the text is technical enough to actually teach you something (not "EAI for Dummies"), without going into the excessive details of the technology. This is the book you want if you really want to understand the basics and begin to form ideas for your own organization.
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