Levels of the Business Platform

Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) is building a business applications platform consisting of several levels.

Today, vertical ISVs and other vendors can build business applications on the .NET Framework and .NET Servers but must write most of the business logic themselves.

In the future, a business framework will provide low-level functionality that is deemed useful for all business applications: for example, a common but extensible way to define business entities, such as a customer or vendor; consistent ways to handle common business processes, such as recording a transaction or accepting an order; and services that support desired features, such as interapplication communication, the ability to create reports from business data, and a flexible and customizable user interface. The first parts of this framework will be available in 2003 as part of the Business Portal SDK (the Business Portal will be a user-customizable interface for MBS applications).

Business components will be built on top of the framework: for example, one group of components will work together to provide a general ledger; another group will provide sales-force automation features. No firm date has been given for these components’ availability, but the first group is likely to include financial and distribution functionality.