Oslo and the Product Roadmap

The Oslo technologies will be delivered in a set of products starting in 2009. Shown here is a likely delivery schedule. Oslo is a code name for a broad Microsoft initiative delivering messaging and workflow technologies for composite applications, which implement new business processes on top of an organization’s existing business applications (e.g., its enterprise resource planning [ERP] system) and communicate with those business applications via Web services.

The most important product in the Oslo initiative is BizTalk Server V6, which will deliver a new messaging component based on the Windows Communication Foundation and a new workflow engine based on the Windows Workflow Foundation. Both the Communication Foundation and the Workflow Foundation shipped initially in the .NET Framework 3.0 and will continue to be available in subsequent versions, including the Oslo version (not officially named and called .NET Framework “4” here). However, BizTalk Server V6 will deliver additional components not in the Framework, such as support for publish-subscribe message routing, messaging adapters to enable connectivity to major business applications (such as mySAP ERP and Siebel CRM), and support for deploying workflows on server farms.