Mikael Sand - Trying to be different

At the moment I am focused on learning more about Azure. A post on my findings will be published later.

I found something interesting about the licensing model for BizTalk 2009. It is called the "Runtime Edition". This takes me back to when I as a young developer made an application using Access 2000 *winces*. In order to distribute the application we had to make sure the end user either had Access 2000 installed or we distributed the Access Runtime.

Well, it seems the nice people at the Connected Systems Division have had a moment of enlightenment, since we now have access to a BizTalk Server Runtime License. Now there is a reason why I use "a moment", because that is all the attention it got! I have had a hard time finding any other blog posts on the subject. The original post refers to the standard BizTalk Server Editions page on the Microsoft site, which has no mention of the runtime license… Now I am in no way a man of conspiracies but this is strange…

I hope that this does not mean this form of license won't be available, because it is a really good idea.

I short it means that an ISV can use BizTalk Server within their product and, as BizTalk is not only a good product, it is also my daily bread. The more BizTalk is used, the more bread. Also an ISV can develop a good product and just add in BizTalk functionality instead of wasting hours on building things that BizTalk will be much better at no matter what.

Right now I can name two large projects within my company that has asked for BizTalk functionality for their respective products but shuns at the price. Hopefully the Runtime Edition will be competitive.

Later edit 2009-07-29

It seems that I am not as well connected as I need to be. The day after I published this post, Thiago Almeida posted on the same subject and apperently this was released at the Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference in early July. So it is official, not just web site official.

Now get out there, develop and then call on me or another BizTalk specialist on how to make that wonderful product a port of your solution.