I apologize for being noticeably quiet for the past few months but it's been a very busy summer with lots of work and little free time for blogging.
The BizTalk (Connected Systems Group) team has done an excellent job and shipped the latest version of their flagship product BizTalk Server 2006 R2. In many ways this is much more than just an"R2" release, especially with all the new adapters, accelerators and partners (like GXS that we work with) involved. Not to mention built in support for EDI, AS2 and RFID. In other ways it's a great "upgrade" release from BizTalk Server 2006 since all your old BTS2006 assemblies and projects should work perfectly on "R2".
Click here for a larger view
Click here for a larger view
As you can see from the screen shots above, all aspects of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 run just fine on Windows Vista with the exception of those features that require Windows SharePoint Services. I know this feature seems small but I have a very hefty new Dell D830 notebook as my main development machine and it's just a lot more productive developing under Vista and then testing on a Win2K3 virtual machine.
And in case you're wondering what I've really been up to for the past few months you can read about it in the following Microsoft case studies (shameless personal plug)
Industrial Seal Maker Eliminates the Uncertainty from Electronic Invoicing
Global Distributor Avoids Cost, Risk While Upgrading Mission-Critical Data Warehouse
Seal Maker Expects $5 Million Revenue Boost from Internet Ordering System
The only thing lacking in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is support for development running under Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 but I expect the BizTalk team will issue a service pack sometime after Visual Studio 2008 ships later this year or early next year.
On a final note, I'd just like to say thanks to Mitch Stein MSFT] and Richard Hughes [MSFT] as well as the PSS folks for all their support and help during our testing and deployment. You folks ROCK!