Microsoft to bundle free adapters with BizTalk

Microsoft will include a host of new software adapters with BizTalk Server 2006 without charging for them, but the price of the integration server will go up, the software’s product manager said Monday.

Steven Martin, group product manager for Microsoft’s business process and integration division, said the majority of the adapters, which connect integration servers to enterprise software from companies such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Siebel Systems, were part of the acquisition of intellectual property from iWay Software earlier this year.

Usually vendors selling integration software, such as IBM, sell adapters as an add-on purchase that drives up the cost of the software purchase significantly, he said.

“In an effort to save money, some customers tend to write these adapters themselves,” Martin said. By including adapters with BizTalk Server, he said it will help customers “make better architectural decisions up front” because they will have all the integration technology laid out for them.

There are 16 adapters that will be included in BizTalk Server 2006. Among them are adapters for Oracle Database Connector, Oracle Application Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel, all of which are in the first beta release of the product that is out now.

Additional adapters that will be included in the product are Tibco Rendezvous, Tibco Enterprise Message Service (EMS), SAP, JD Edwards OneWorld XE, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Amdocs ClarifyCRM and IBM DB2. These adapters will be available in a future beta version of BizTalk Server 2006, according to Microsoft.

Though the BizTalk Server 2006 adapters are for all intents and purposes free, the price of the product will go up from its previous release, BizTalk Server 2004, Martin said.

BizTalk Server 2004 cost $25,000 for the enterprise edition and $7,000 for the standard edition, whereas the next release will cost $29,999 for the enterprise edition and $8,499 for the standard edition, he said.

BizTalk Server has strong technology ties to Microsoft’s Visual Studio developer toolset and SQL Server database. New versions of all three products were launched Monday at an event in San Francisco.

Because Visual Studio is the developer platform for BizTalk and SQL Server is its underlying message store, customers that want to deploy BizTalk Server also must deploy those products, Martin said. One developer license for Visual Studio 2005 will be included in the cost of BizTalk Server 2006, but SQL Server 2005 must be purchased separately, he said. SQL Server 2006 costs $24,999 for the enterprise edition and $5,999 for the standard edition.

Although Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are available now, BizTalk Server 2006 won’t be available until the first half of 2006, Martin said. The product is in its first beta now and a second beta release will come out before the end of the year, he said.