Regarding Key Features of Biztalk Server 2004

Hi,
as per my understamding of BizTalk it can be used for following benefits mentioned below.

%u00b7 The life span of the workflow system could be extended effectively using BizTalk(in case of workflow kind of application)

. BizTalk could be administered by Technical as well as Business Analysts. Any change in the business process or incorporation of new business process into the system could be done without much difficulty.
BizTalk exposes the business rules in the form of Orchestrations, Orchestrations supports creation of workflow using graphical design tools, which could be administered by any business analyst who understands the business process. This essentially means to maintain the system technical people are not always required.

%u00b7 Programming approach usually engaged with BizTalk is Service Oriented Approach, which means that the architecture is loosely coupled. So the scope of extending the functionality is much large. Business processes could be also exposed as Web Services.

This essentially means that in future an organization could think of exposing the services of their system to the sub units separated by geographies, also to the external world.

%u00b7 High level solutions can be built quickly and presented to the business people in an understandable way.

%u00b7 The main feature of BizTalk being data from disparate systems could be brought into one place. This is always a dream for most of the organizations; BizTalk makes it much easier to connect heterogeneous systems.
In future if some clients of the organization, Vendors decide to have some system running at their end which needs to be connected to the Legacy system with Organization for effective data exchange, BizTalk is the only solution.
%u00b7 The Health of workflow messages circulated within the system could be tracked at any point, this would be also helpful to the technical support people.
%u00b7
In future with respect to an Organization, Information sharing and collaboration could be a vital requirement, SharePoint provides a platform for that. A comprehensive set of technologies can work together from Windows server to application servers, smart clients etc.
The BizTalk approach would also be making use of Microsoft SharePoint services. SharePoint services would have the following advantage over a conventional web portal application ;
%u00b7 Effective Information sharing and collaboration.
%u00b7 Cost effective deployment and extensibility.
%u00b7 Easy integration with familiar tools.
%u00b7 Persistent security, management and scalability.
%u00b7 Services are made up of common technology like Web parts and ASP.net based components. Web parts could be added to page and configured by site administrators.
%u00b7 Provides place to capture, share information, share documents. Contents accessible form web browser.
%u00b7 Supports versioning.
%u00b7 Sites collaborative content could be read and edited within word, excel, PowerPoint etc.
%u00b7 Can scale to thousands of sites within an organization. Supports load balancing.
%u00b7 Site usage can be monitored.
%u00b7 End users can create their own sites, sites and servers can be managed from web browser, command line tools.