Rating: 
Summary: The Worst Ever
Review: This book is a complete waste of time (unless you are one of about 15 people interested in learing about a product called 'OmniMark'). Here is a real breakdown of the book: Part 1: XML/XSL basics - better explanation anywhere else (p1-129) Part II: XML Messaging - The SOAP part (p133 - 197) Then building a Biztalk server using OmniMark - useless (pg 199 - 242) Chapter 12 might have been interesting but it is only about 18 pages long. The rest of the book (another 150 pages is a primer on OmniMark and the W3C SOAP note (available online ate www.w3.org. All in all it's about $45 for about 30 useful pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Introduction to Biztalk World
Review: This book is a great introduction into the biztalk world. One of the rare books that you can read from cover to cover (except the appendices) without falling asleep. The coverage on XML/XSL/SOAP is excellent, and to the point.I was also able to understand Biztalk Framework, schemas and how to write BFC servers. The author has done a excellent job of presenting these materials. I found only two drawbacks to this book: 1) Author's persistence in using Omnimark language in all the examples. It may be a great language for working with xml, but for xml beginners it can be a nuisance. Its like trying to learn two languages at a time, while the first language is being taught using the second language. 2) The coverage on Microsoft's Biztalk Server 2000 is very limited, the discussion is limited to some block diagram scenerios. It does not even touch upon the real application development using BTS2000. The example on Biztalk Mapper is very isolated, it does not discuss how the message is actually sent to the BTS2000 or how the response is sent out. There is no discussion on how to use the workflow designer or document tracking. I am still looking for a book that would cover it. Otherwise, I highly recommended this book as a introduction to Biztalk world.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Introduction to XML
Review: This book is billed as an introduction to XML, SOAP, and BizTalk, but I found that just the XML introduction could stand alone as an excellent book. I have read several books on XML, and they are either a re-statement of the XML spec that is freely available on the Web, or else a description of how to use XML in a very narrow task, like building Web pages or as a replacement to HTML. The first part of this book covers the XML spec, including the well-formed document and the importance of schemas. It also provides an excellent introduction to the XSLT language for XML transformations, using a novel approach to teaching. The second half of the book is devoted to the BizTalk open document specification. The author notes that a BizTalk server can be written in any language to run on any platform, not just Microsoft. The book has complete code for two BizTalk servers, one is written using Visual Basic and Active Server Pages, the other in OmniMark, a language for building Web sites. I would have preferred to have the second BizTalk server be written in Java or perl, but it was refreshing to be exposed to a new language. There is even an appendix on OmniMark, which provides a quick overview of this language that seems to be underestimated. In all, this book is well worth the money, if only for the introduction to XML and XSLT. The SOAP and BizTalk parts are just icing on the cake.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for high level understanding
Review: This book presents a good high level overview of XML, SOAP and Biztalk. It does go down to lower level details form time to time. However, the implementation language chosen by the author is OmniMark, which is not the most popular language around. So be prepared to learn a new language and try to adapt it into your own environment, or just try to grasp the concepts. The last one third of the book contains reference materials.
Rating: 
Summary: Many examples use OmniMark
Review: This book should be titled "XML and SOAP Programming for OmniMark Advocates."
Rating:
Summary: Why does the title contain "BizTalk"?
Review: This is the best introduction to XML syntax and the application of XML I have ever read. The author describes XML in real world terms from a practical standpoint. The title, which includes "BizTalk", isn't even really necessary. Even if you don't care about BizTalk, the first half of this book is a great value for understanding XML in an e-commerce environment. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Practical examples for SOAP
Review: This is the first book I have seen that has an easy-to-read description of SOAP, and clear code examples to show how SOAP works. The author starts the book by talking about XML by itself. If you don't know about XML syntax, this is an excellent tutorial to get you started. If you have been working with XML, you might want to read the description of the DTD vs. new XML schemas that are coming out. BizTalk uses Microsoft XDR format until the W3C finishes their XSD spec. It's all laid out in the book. The SOAP examples were my favorite, though. The book includes lots of code for building a SOAP server and a SOAP client, then passing information between the two. SOAP is critical for the BizTalk framework, and will probably be the envelope of choice for many other messaging standards. This book provides a great, short description of SOAP and examples to get you started. I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Omnimark
Review: This was not a BizTalk book. It is an Omnimark book. Very, very little discussion on BizTalk Server. Not much discussion of important BizTalk concepts: ports, channels, organizations, orchestration, etc. I did not find it helpful at all.
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