Microsoft To Bridge Office, Back-Office Apps

The "Information Worker Bridge" project now under way is designed to make it easier for integrators or in-house developers to make de facto Excel or Word front ends for back-end accounting, ERP and other applications, sources said.

In theory, this would take back-office integration beyond ODBC drivers and InfoPath, the Office application that lets users build dynamic forms on their desktops that tap into back-office XML data.

"What they've done is figured out what the 'connector ware,' workflow sequencing control and sync layer will look like and built a series of APIs accessible from Visual Studio," said one partner close to the project.

Those APIs, which will enable developers to build links to back-end sources, will "figure out format conversion, transcoding and routing, so what you ask for is appropriately responded to via Excel or whatever," said the partner, who noted that this work--plus BizTalk Server 2004 acting as a broker--will facilitate integration.

As is often the case, packaging and deliverables remain hazy even to those familiar with the plan. "We're unclear on the pricing model, but the capability will be in the upcoming Visual Studio. And if you get the enterprise [license], you'll get all that stuff," said one source. Whidbey, the next version of Visual Studio.Net, is expected later this year.

Some industry observers said that with the advent of Visual Studio Tools for Office, the latter product is now in the mainstream deveopment fold at Microsoft. Before that, Office and Windows developers had separate, different tool sets.

"The Information Worker or Web services bridge is a continuation of [Jeff] Raikes' vision that Office apps aren't stand-alone but can be integrated into back-end systems. You are now challenged if you want to connect Excel to an accounting package, for example," said another source with knowledge of the product.

Raikes, group vice president of Microsoft's productivity and business services, heads the Office Systems charge.

The whole Microsoft Office-as-platform push is a challenge for the Redmond, Wash., company, observers say. Many partners and ISVs see little opportunity for anyone but Microsoft to make money building atop Office applications. The company, while maintaining that it is pleased with Office 2003 license sales since the October launch, is actually worried about adoption rates, several sources said. A combination of factors-- including continued balky IT spending, resistance to Microsoft licensing changes and the fourth-quarter launch--have hurt sales, several channel sources said.

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on the Information Worker Bridge plan, other than to say Office 2003 was designed to make customers more productive (see story for more Office 2003 news).