Microsoft this week added workflow capabilities to BizTalk Services, the company's platform-in-the-cloud project for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management.

The R12 Community Technology Preview for BizTalk Services, the 12th version of the project, offers workflow-enabling service orchestration from the cloud. These services can connect to enterprise systems or to systems running anywhere on the Internet.

Featured in R12 are a hosted Windows Workflow Foundation runtime and Web services messaging. Users could, for example, set up an automated process that uses Web services to provide pricing information to a partner, said Steven Martin, senior director of product management for the Microsoft connected systems division. “The workflow technology allows me to define the interaction between those services,” he said.

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