Rating: 
Summary: Well written, concise guide
Review: Understanding BizTalk is a great introduction to this new technology and its importance in the future of B2B e-commerce.It provides a comprehensive, manager-level view, not only of BizTalk itself, but also of the supporting technologies, such as XML, DNA 2000 and SOAP. Understanding BizTalk even discusses a critical but oft overlooked issue: legacy system integration. The book is intelligently laid out, starting with an overview, then moving into details, planning, and finally onto implementation and a real world case study. Understanding BizTalk provides IT managers and system architects with everything needed to plan a B2B solution. Credit goes to the authors for distilling a complex technology down to a concise guide (especially considering that the topic is a moving target).
Rating: 
Summary: A view for strategists & technical decision makers
Review: When Microsoft announced BizTalk in March of 1999, it was clear that there was going to be a BIG push from Microsoft for this product. The next month I attended a standing room only briefing with the some of the leaders of the market - Companies like SAP, JD Edwards, Dell, Clarus, etc. It was clear from the interest that these companies showed and from the need in the market that BizTalk was important. At that point Omicron set out to write two books on BizTalk. This is the first book. "Understanding BizTalk" is written for a technical decision maker who would like to get an understanding of why, what and where to use BizTalk. The second is a book targeted at programming BizTalk. This latter book will be out in the fall - the time when any other programmer level book on BizTalk can be released. Given what we know about other peer books and the initiative in total, the fall is when you will likely see all the other books on the BizTalk subject. So in "Understanding BizTalk", my co-authors, Steve Tranchida and Bart Preecs, and I set out to describe the motivation behind BizTalk - where it is needed, how to best attack problems it can solve. We then move into XML and the BizTalk Alpha Preview. Let me take a moment to point out that a book this early in the cycle cannot have any quality without close work with Microsoft - we had close interaction with the BizTalk team through design reviews and pre-releases of the software. With this insight we were able to write this look into the BizTalk product. We also were able to see and relate how BizTalk will interact with Commerce Server 2000, SQL Server 2000, HIS and SOAP. We close with a real-life case study from some work that Omicron has completed. If you are looking for a hard core/500-page programmer's book - "Understanding BizTalk" is not it. You will have to wait until the fall. However, until then, we hope that this early pre-view of the BizTalk initiative will help you sort out what BizTalk is, where it can be used and how to best prepare for the release.
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