The team responsible for the Microsoft Business Framework (MBF) has been dissolved and its members moved into other organizations within Microsoft. The reorganization stems from a decision to cancel the MBF, which was envisioned as a business logic foundation on which Microsoft would build future generations of business applications (such as Project Green, which was recently renamed Dynamics). Some of the MBF team's work has made its way into Visual Studio 2005 and other work could show up in subsequent releases of that product. However, some work has been scrapped in favor of competing Microsoft technologies such as the Windows Workflow Foundation.

A Foundation for Business Applications

The MBF was intended to address several problems in the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) portfolio of business applications, such as Great Plains and Axapta, including the fact that every MBS application uses a different code base, libraries, and programming interface. Furthermore, these products rely on aging Microsoft technologies, such as the Component Object Model (COM), rather than modern Microsoft technologies such as the .NET Framework. Microsoft also intended the MBF as a tool for third parties and corporate developers building business applications.

To meet those requirements, the MBF was envisioned as a set of common, low-level functions for business applications: for example, it would provide an extensible way to define business entities, such as a customer or vendor; tools for modeling and automating business processes, such as recording transactions or processing purchase orders; and other tools and services for interapplication communication, report creation, and designing and customizing user interfaces.

While some of the MBF team's work will make its way into shipping Microsoft products, other work has been scrapped. For example, according to Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Vice President Satya Nadella, some of the work done by the MBF team appears in modeling and design tools that ship with Visual Studio 2005 Team System. However, part of the MBF team's charter was to create tools for modeling and automating business processes, and that work has been dropped in favor of the Windows Workflow Foundation, announced in Sept. 2005.

Team Members Split

The MBF team consisted of about 200 members of the Visual Studio development organization in Microsoft's Server and Tools division. About half of the employees will remain in the Server and Tools division. The remaining employees will be moved into Nadella's MBS research and development division. Some will focus on short-term work, such as planned incremental releases of MBS products, and others will support long-term efforts, such as the roles-based user interfaces planned for Dynamics (the planned common code base for all MBS products).

Since part of the MBF team's work will appear in some form in other Microsoft products, the dismantling of the team will likely not impact the company's plans to consolidate its enterprise resource planning line. However, eliminating the MBF as a stand-alone, consolidated platform leaves fewer options for third-party and corporate business application developers. Those developers will either base their applications on now scattered technologies (such as the Windows Workflow Foundation and modeling tools in Visual Studio), which will probably extend development cycles, or use Dynamics as the technology foundation for those applications, which likely constrains them to vertical market niches.

Resources

A recent discussion of Dynamics goals and objectives appears in "Project Green Details Trickle Out" on page 23 of the Nov. 2005 Update.

For more information on the Windows Workflow Foundation, see "Workflow Strategy Takes Shape" on page 15 of the Nov. 2005 Update.

For more information on Visual Studio modeling tools, see "Modeling Comes to Visual Studio" on page 13 of the Sept. 2005 Update.

A discussion of the Microsoft Business Framework and its relationship to the original Project Green appears in "New Generation of MBS Products Planned" on page 16 of the Dec. 2003 Update.