Scenarios & Opportunities

Karthik Ravindran
Architect
Platform Architecture Team, DPE
Microsoft Corporation

November 2007

Summary: LOBsystems play a crucial role in supporting the functioning of businesses acrossa wide range of industries and markets. “The Results Gap” described in thispaper plagues a significant majority of existing LOB system deployments. Thistrend will continue if solutions to bridge the gap are not implemented tounlock the value of LOB system investments across the broad spectrum ofbusiness application users.

Contents

Introduction
Part 1 – Understanding the Results Gap
Part 2 – Addressing the Results Gap
Part 3 – OBAs and the Technology Landscape
Part 4 – OBA Opportunities and Evidence
Conclusion

Introduction

Investments in deploying and maintainingline-of-business (LOB) software systems constitute the significant percentageof IT-related spending in the small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) andenterprise business segments. The vast majority of businesses invest inpurchasing and integrating vendor offerings that best address the needs oftheir business model(s), industry vertical(s), and user requirements. Thistrend is expected to continue and grow well into the future. The SMB market inspecific is a multibillion dollar segment with no clear industry leader and aplethora of opportunities. The widespread fragmentation in the business sizes,reach, and domain specific verticals within the broader market segments can beseen as an opportunity for multiple players to co-exist and thrive.

Over 50 percent of LOB system investmentsfail to meet user expectations today, resulting in adoption challenges andfailure to unlock the full business value of LOB systems. Highly structuredsystem processes and user experiences that fail to easily adapt to changingbusiness requirements, and fail to integrate seamlessly with the unstructuredreal world business processes and business user productivity tools, are the primarycauses of the user adoption and return on investment (ROI) challengesexperienced in LOB system deployments. LOB systems that offer solutions thatare best aligned with an industry’s core competencies, which can easily adaptto changing domain requirements, and which can align/integrate seamlessly withreal world business processes and user experience requirements, will have adefinite edge over competitive offerings that fall short in one or more ofthese aspects. A LOB system with these characteristics exhibits the vital userand process centric traits core to materializing user adoption and the desiredROI.

Focusing on core competencies is vital tomaking timely strides and capitalizing on market opportunities. This appliesacross the board to all industries and markets, including LOB system vendors.LOB system vendors should carefully evaluate the value of proprietary platforminvestments in frameworks to enable user and process centric experiences inlieu of leveraging the core competencies of a well-established platform vendorin this space. Leveraging the solution frameworks of a well-establishedplatform vendor to enable user and process-centric experiences will enable LOBsystem vendors to instead focus on their core competencies of implementing andcustomizing business processes and services relevant to their industries andverticals, resulting in an improved ability to respond to shiftingmarket/industry requirements.

With the 2007 release, the Microsoft OfficeSystem has evolved from being the world’s most popular suite of businessproductivity tools to becoming a complete solutions platform thatintegrates deeply with the broader and Microsoft platform, to enable buildinguser and process centric business solutions that can address the LOB systemadoption and ROI challenges. This is made possible by a collection of tools andservices that make it possible to easily and deeply integrate LOB processes andrich user experiences for LOB data access, analysis, and manipulation, withinthe broadly deployed and widely popular Microsoft Office rich client andSharePoint Web/browser portal user interfaces.

This paper presents a broad overview of theopportunities and scenarios for integrating LOB systems with the MicrosoftOffice System. The paper is targeted at LOB system vendors, LOB solutionintegrators, and corporate IT departments. Senior technology business decisionmakers are the primary target audience for this paper.

This paper is not a technical deep-diveinto the 2007 Microsoft Office System. The core technology aspects arediscussed at the appropriate level throughout the paper. Links to relateddeep-dive technical resources are provided at the end of this paper to enablefurther offline exploration.

Note: Theinformation in this paper applies to the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Part 1– Understanding the Results Gap

This section provides an overview of LOBsystems, the requirements and expectations of business application users, andthe factors that influence adoption/ROI challenges in LOB system deployments.

Line of Business Systems (LOBSystems)

In the context of this paper, the term “LOBsystem(s)” is used to refer to a software application or a suite of softwareapplications that integrate the core data and processes of a businessorganization. LOB systems play an integral role in supporting day to dayoperations and mid-long term business planning and monitoring across a widerange of businesses and industries in the SMB and enterprise segments.

LOB systems can be classified as“back-office” and “front-office” systems, as depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. LOB systems classification

Back-office systems are transactionoriented and facilitate the capture of the core operational line–of-businesstransactions. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system modules like generalledger (GL), accounts receivable (AR), accounts payable (AP), and inventorymanagement are some examples of back-office LOB systems. Front-office LOBsystems integrate transactional data from across one or more back officesystems to facilitate higher level consolidated information analysis, businessprocesses, and data manipulation. Customer relationship management (CRM),supplier relationship management (SRM), expense management, project management,and budgeting and forecasting solutions are some examples of front-office LOBsystems.

The users who interact with theapplications at each of these layers have vastly different skill sets, workingstyles, and functional requirements.

It must be noted that LOB systems in thecontext of this paper are not limited to generic ERP, SCM, and CRM softwaresolutions. Related examples have been referenced here based on the broader userfamiliarity with these systems. Domain-specific solutions that targetspecialized industry verticals, such as the public sector, health care, andbanking, are also considered as LOB systems in the context of this paper.

LOB Systems and Users

Figure 2 depicts the different categoriesof users who interact with LOB systems. Users in each of these categories havevastly different skill sets, working styles, and functional requirements.

Figure 2. LOB System Users

Operational workers are transaction focused and primarily use back-office systems torecord and update transactional data in response to operational businesstransactions as they occur in real time. These users rarely have requirementsto access data beyond the scope of their transactional boundaries. They areusually not very fluent in business productivity clients/tools. They aretrained to use structured and transactional LOB clients to interact with theback-office LOB systems relevant to their job function. Inventory clerks,machine operators, and service technicians are a few examples of operationalworkers.

Knowledge/information workers specialize in higher level and consolidated business functions.They constitute a key and significant percentage of LOB system users. Theyprimarily use front-office LOB systems to access, analyze, and/or updateconsolidated data that spans one or more back-office LOB system modules. Theseworkers are power users and are proficient in using unstructured businessproductivity applications such as Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, andPowerPoint. Business productivity clients/tools are their preferred interfacesfor accessing and acting upon integrated and consolidated LOB data relevant tothe business processes of relevance to their job functions. Given a choice,these users would prefer to not install or log on to proprietary LOB systemclients to access the data required for completing their job functions. CRM/SRMrepresentatives, project managers, and financial analysts are a few examples ofknowledge/information workers.

Managementand executive level users have a broader tactical and strategic focus.Obtaining consolidated and timely 360-degree views of all aspects of a businessis of primary importance to these users. These users rely on strategicdashboards and alerts to monitor overall business health, and also use businessproductivity applications for drill down/explorative analysis, collaboration,and communication. Given a choice, these users would prefer to not install orlog on to proprietary LOB system clients to access the data required for completingtheir job functions. All CXO (CEO, CIO, CFO, COO) and senior management levelusers fit into this user category.

The Results Gap

The previous section introduced thedifferent groups of LOB system users and their varying skill sets, workingstyles, and functional requirements. A number of LOB systems do not recognizethese differences and invest in common user experience capabilities foroperational workers, knowledge workers, and executives/managers. These userexperiences are commonly surfaced through a mix of proprietary and highlystructured rich clients and/or Web portals, which fail to recognize thedifferences in working styles and functional requirements across the distinctuser groups. This is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. LOB systems and users –one size fits all

The “one size fits all” structured approachto surfacing LOB system user experiences is the primary cause of user adoptionand ROI challenges experienced in LOB system deployments. This is specificallymost relevant to the knowledge/information worker and the executive/managementuser communities (who will collectively be referred to henceforth asinformation workers in the context of this paper), where the attributesexhibited by LOB systems are the polar opposites of the user working styles andfunctional requirements. This shortcoming is commonly referred to as “TheResults Gap,” as depicted in Figure 4, which signifies the challenges thatthese users face to unlock the full value of LOB system investments.

Figure 4. The Results Gap

Part 2– Addressing the Results Gap

This section describes the solutionrequirements that must be addressed to bridge “The Results Gap” and presentsthe scenarios and opportunities for leveraging the core competencies of theMicrosoft Office System as a practical means to achieving the same.

Solution Requirements

A solution platform thataddresses the real-world LOB information worker requirements described in thissection is well positioned to bridge “The Results Gap.” The emphasis on a platformis important to observe because the solution framework should be based onestablished and repeatable patterns that can be applied across multiple LOBsystems targeting different industries and verticals.

A solution platform should support therequirements described in this section to enable user and process centric LOBsolutions that can align and integrate seamlessly with the real world ofinformation work to bridge “The Results Gap”.

Integration with Familiar BusinessProductivity Clients

Information workers constitute thesignificant majority of LOB system users. Information workers spend the bulk oftheir day in business productivity clients analyzing data, performing datamanipulations, collaborating with co-workers, and responding to requests forinformation. Delivering role-tailored LOB system user experiences that aredeeply integrated into the business productivity clients that informationworkers are intimately familiar with is a core opportunity and requirement tomake LOB systems more accessible to these users.

Many LOB systems require informationworkers to log on to proprietary clients and navigate a complex set of menusand screens to gain access to the data required to perform their job functions.Some LOB systems provide information workers with consolidated role-tailoredbusiness portals that do a decent job at presenting the big picture view butfall short in addressing unstructured drill-down analysis and collaborationrequirements.

Irrespective of the LOB system clients theyuse, information workers eventually export and integrate relevant LOB data intofamiliar business productivity clients to complete their tasks. Most LOBsystems provide UI options within the proprietary clients to export LOB data topopular business productivity clients like Microsoft Excel and Word. However,these capabilities do not mitigate the far-from-optimal user experience ofnavigating application menus and multiple forms in the LOB clients toconsolidate the data required to complete an information worker task. They alsodo not enable information workers to execute actions that write/update LOB datafrom within the business productivity clients. Information workers mustmanually consolidate the results of work executed in business productivity clientsto post data writes/updates from within the proprietary LOB system clients.

Enabling deeply integrated androle-tailored experiences for accessing LOB data and executing informationworker tasks from within familiar business productivity clients would be a farmore optimal solution to bridge the user productivity gaps in the InformationWorker community.

Data Integration

Integrated views of data that areseamlessly consolidated from across multiple related LOB subsystems andpresented to users in a role-tailored and contextual manner are importantenabling capabilities for information workers.

Data integration is of significantpertinence across the broad spectrum of front-office LOB applications used byinformation workers. These include domain-specific applications, such as CRM,and generic systems, such as search, business intelligence (BI)/reporting, andplanning/forecasting.

Business productivity can be significantlyenhanced by enabling integrated and consolidated access to LOB data from withinthe context of role-tailored information worker business portals and businessproductivity clients. Enabling such deeply integrated experiences in familiarenvironments will eliminate the need for information workers to navigateproprietary LOB system clients to access the data required to execute their jobfunctions. Having contextual and consolidated access to pertinent data fromwithin the business productivity client comfort zones contributes to unlockingthe value of LOB systems in the information workers community.

Business Documents

Business documents with integrated LOB dataare de facto artifacts in a wide range of business processes. Businessdocuments can vary in regards to the flexibility of their formats. Statusreports, contracts, planning documents and spreadsheets, business communicationtemplates, and business presentations are examples of free format businessdocuments whose layouts and non-LOB content can vary frequently to accommodatechanging requirements and conditions. Business documents, such as salesinvoices, purchase invoices, and material requisition slips, are examples ofmore highly structured documents that tend to retain a fixed format over anelongated duration of time.

Business document templates and businessdocument instances are commonly composed in business productivity clients byaccessing and integrating related LOB data. Many information workers tend tospend a significant chunk of their time composing, reviewing, collaborating on,and presenting business documents. Most LOB systems expose options within theirproprietary client interfaces to export raw LOB data to one or more relevantbusiness productivity clients from within which business document instances canbe composed. This approach requires users to navigate menus and forms in theLOB system client(s) to locate and export the data required to compose thedocuments. Some LOB systems offer additional capabilities that enable a user topush a button in the client and generate a formatted document with embedded LOBdata. However, any modifications to the document content that require accessand integration of additional or alternate data will land the user back in theLOB system client(s).

Deeper LOB integration withinbusiness productivity clients to enable composing structured and unstructuredbusiness documents with embedded LOB data can help bridge related informationworker productivity gaps.

A related problem in the context ofbusiness documents is that of distributed document silos. Simply stated,distributed document silos is the term used to refer to the condition wheremultiple versions of one or more business documents exist on individual userworkstations and are updated and used independently of each other. This is anon-optimal situation because it could lead to multiple conflicting versions ofinformation that should ideally be maintained at all times as a single unifiedversion of the truth, being used as the base for business decisions. A solutionplatform should support modeling business documents as first -lass LOB contenttypes that can be managed, accessed, and versioned in a centralized manner toaddress this problem.

Unstructured and CollaborativeBusiness Processes

Real-world information worker businessprocesses are seldom sequential and structured. Core attributes of real-worldinformation worker business processes include complex and, at times,unstructured information flows that must eventually be materialized as LOBdata, structured and unstructured collaboration within and across organizationboundaries, the use of a wide variety of communication mechanisms, requirementsto be able to work offline and synchronize data when connected, and frequentlychanging business policies. LOB systems tend to wrap such business processes inhighly structured facades that do not align with the real world of informationwork.

To address “The Results Gap” in thisaspect, a solution platform should support materializing unstructured andcollaborative business processes through a deep integration with businessproductivity clients, tools, and devices that align with the real world ofinformation work.

Figure 5 illustrates the unstructured andcollaborative steps that play a role in converting an opportunity to a quotewithin a broader “sales lead-to-invoicing” business process. Notice thestructured modeling of the business process in the LOB systems layer (CRM +ERP), and the interplay of the unstructured collaborations and communicationsbetween information workers to materialize an instance of the process in thereal world. Also note the annotations in the unstructured layer that depict theuse of a variety of business productivity applications and devices throughoutthe process.

Figure 5. Real-world information work

Manual transfer of data and activitysynchronization between the LOB and the unstructured real-world businessprocess layers is the norm in the majority of LOB system deployments today.This results in a significant information worker productivity gap caused by theinability of a business process implementation in a LOB system to align withthe real world of information work.

LOB systems can bridge this gap by enablingthe materialization of real-world business processes from start to finishthrough automated and collaborative human centric workflows and a deepintegration with business productivity applications and devices used in thereal world.

Customizable and Self-Serving

The unstructured nature of real-worldinformation work and the varying functional requirements of information workersrequire a supporting platform to enable solutions that are customizable andself-serving without requiring constant IT involvement. Information workersshould be able to customize the out-of-the-box solution and compose customapplication artifacts to access information and execute actions that are notdirectly accessible using the out-of-the-box solution interfaces. Enablingthese capabilities from within the context of information worker businessproductivity client interfaces is essential to bridge “The Results Gap.”

Compliant Solutions

Compliancy is currently a hot topic thatimposes a variety of mandatory requirements on the processes and execution ofbusiness organizations. Ensuring that compliancy requirements are adhered to inthe unstructured world of information work introduces some interestingfunctional requirements and related challenges. The solution platform mustsupport modeling and seamlessly integrating compliance policies in informationworker business processes. The enforcement of compliance policies should bedeeply integrated and as transparent as possible to the user. It should also bepossible to easily customize the policies to respond to mandatory changingrequirements.

Office Business Applications(OBAs) - A Practical Solution to bridge “The Results Gap”

The Microsoft Office System is acomprehensive and open solution platform that LOB systems can integrate with tobridge “The Results Gap.” With the 2007 release, the Microsoft Office Systemhas evolved from being the world’s most popular suite of business productivitytools to becoming a complete solutions platform that deeply integrateswith the broader Microsoft platform to enable building user and process centricbusiness solutions referred to as Office Business Applications (OBAs). OBAs canbe designed and implemented to bridge “The Results Gap” by addressing the broadset of information worker requirements described in the previous section. Thisis made possible by a collection of platform applications, tools, and servicesthat make it viable to easily and deeply integrate LOB processes and rich userexperiences for LOB data access, analysis, and manipulation, within the broadlydeployed and widely popular Microsoft Office Business Productivity applicationsand role-tailored business portals built on Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Integrating with and leveraging the corecompetencies of the Microsoft Office System in bridging “The Results Gap” is avery compelling and practical solution that LOB system vendors and corporate ITdepartments can adopt to unlock the value of their LOB solutions across thebroad segments of business application users.

Figures 6 and 7 illustrate the attributesand capabilities of LOB systems and the Microsoft Office System and how theycan be integrated to build OBAs that bridge “The Results Gap.”

Figure 6. LOB Systems and the Microsoft Office System

Figure 7. OBA Solution Attributes

The following sections provide an overviewof the OBA platform and how its capabilities address the solution requirementsto bridge “The Results Gap.”

The Microsoft Office System—ThePlatform for OBAs

The Microsoft Office System is a completesolutions platform that integrates deeply with the broader and Microsoftplatform, to enable building user and process centric business solutionsreferred to as Office Business Applications (OBAs). OBAs are not aboutdiscarding existing investments in LOB systems. LOB systems are crucial to thefunctioning of a business, and OBAs are not intended or positioned to replacethem. Building OBAs is about integrating existing LOB systems with theMicrosoft Office System to use its established core competencies in addressingthe solution requirements to bridge “The Results Gap” and unlock the full valueof LOB system investments.

The Microsoft Office System comprises acollection of platform applications, tools, and services that make it viable toeasily and deeply integrate LOB processes and rich user experiences for LOBdata access, analysis, and manipulation, within the broadly deployed and widelypopular Microsoft Office Business Productivity applications and role-tailoredbusiness portals built on Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and the MicrosoftOffice SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Figure 8 illustrates the components andcapabilities of the Microsoft Office System and the integration of LOB Systemswith the Microsoft Office System to materialize OBAs.

Figure 8. The Office Business Applications Platform

The core components of the Microsoft OfficeSystem include the Microsoft Office Business Productivity client applications(Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath, and Visio being the most widelydeployed and used) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). Differentlevels of LOB system integration can be accomplished across these offerings tomaterialize OBAs. Solutions can also optionally use the services andcapabilities of domain-specific Office Application Servers, such as MicrosoftOffice PerformancePoint Server (advanced BI for planning, monitoring, andanalytics) and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (real-timecommunications and collaboration).

Open standards and interoperability arecore tenets of the Microsoft Office System. The metadata definitions of OBAsolution objects are based on XML schemas, all Office products are serviceenabled from ground up (see the OBAs and ServiceOrientation section in this paper), and interoperable OpenXML file formatsare the default schemas for business documents created using/generated for theMicrosoft Office business productivity client applications.

The Microsoft Office System is alsodesigned for extensibility from the ground up. Extensibility is enabled acrossthe Office client and server offerings. The Office business productivityclients can be fully customized and extended to enable role-tailored userexperiences and introduce required levels of structure when accessing andmanipulating LOB data. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a fully extensibleplatform that supports/enables customized extensions to all its core serviceofferings.

It must be noted that Microsoft Officeintegrated solutions deeply integrate with the core Microsoft platform and theMicrosoft .NET Framework. Visual Studio .NET and managed .NET programminglanguages (such as Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET) are the primary developmenttools for building OBAs. This implies that all capabilities of the broaderMicrosoft platform and the .NET Framework can be used when designing OBAs. Italso implies that existing investments and skills in .NET development andrelated software development life cycle (SDLC) practices can be fully leveragedin the OBA solution development process.

Scenarios and Opportunities forIntegrating LOB Systems with Microsoft Office Client Applications

Information workers are power users who areproficient at using unstructured business productivity applications likeMicrosoft Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Business productivityclients/tools are their preferred interfaces for accessing and acting uponintegrated and consolidated LOB data relevant to the business processes ofrelevance to their job functions. Given a choice, information workers wouldprefer to not install or log on to proprietary LOB system clients to access thedata required for completing their job functions.

Enabling seamless and integrated access toLOB data from within the context of the widely deployed and broadly adoptedMicrosoft Office client applications is a proven approach to successfullyextend the reach of LOB systems to information workers and to unlock the valueof LOB system investments. Examples of related scenarios are described in the OBA Scenarios section of this paper.

The benefits of enabling seamless access toLOB data and processes from within the Microsoft Office client applications aregenerally well recognized. The challenges are more commonly in relation todeveloping an understanding of how to accomplish this and concerns regardinginvestments in related technology and development skills.

Figure 9 illustrates the approaches thatcan be taken to integrate access to LOB data and processes in the MicrosoftOffice client applications.

Figure 9. Integrating LOB Systems with Microsoft Officeclient applications

LOB system integration interfaces in theMicrosoft Office client applications are implemented and deployed as Officeclient add-ins. Add-ins can be implemented to function at the scope of anentire Microsoft Office client application or at the scope of individualdocument instances (where applicable). Application-level add-ins enable genericLOB system integration capabilities that are not document-specific. A genericbusiness data look-up add-in that enables querying and integrating LOB data inany context is an example of an application-level add-in. Document-leveladd-ins are used to integrate capabilities which are specific to a particulartype business document that is created, managed, and collaborated upon using aMicrosoft Office client application like Word or Excel. Document templatesdesigned for business communications and specialized tasks like planning,budgeting, and forecasting are examples of scenarios where document-leveladd-ins can be implemented to facilitate the integration of contextual LOB dataand processes.

The two commonly adopted patterns tointegrate LOB systems with the Office client applications are the Direct Accesspattern and the Mediated pattern. The choice of the pattern to use should besolution specific and determined by the functional requirements. In the DirectAccess pattern, Office client applications can integrate with LOB systems bydirectly consuming interfaces exposed by the LOB system layer. The supportedinterfaces for this pattern include ADO.NET data providers and Web services.Web services, when available, are the preferred interfaces for this type ofintegration. In the Mediated pattern integration is achieved by usinginterfaces exposed by a middle tier application server which exposes additionalservices over the core LOB system layer. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Serveris an example of a middle-tier application server whose capabilities will beintroduced in the next section.

The following table describes some LOBintegration scenarios for the most commonly used Microsoft Office clientapplications:

In regards to technology and developmentskill investments, the tight alignment and integration of the Microsoft OfficeSystem with the broader Microsoft platform and the .NET Framework imply thatall related technology and skill investments can be leveraged in full capacityto integrate LOB systems with Microsoft Office client applications. VisualStudio .NET and managed .NET programming languages (Visual C# and Visual Basic.NET) are the primary tools to build OBAs that integrate with the 2007Microsoft Office System. This trend will continue into the future and isunlike, as in the past, when deep COM and C++ development skills were requiredto extend the Microsoft Office clients. Visual Studio .NET includes abstractedvisual designers and wizards that make the development experience for buildingOffice client add-ins similar to that of building Windows Forms and ASP.NETapplications. Governance of development efforts to implement Office clientadd-ins can also be achieved through integration with the Visual Studio TeamFoundation Server or other similar systems used for .NET development projects.These significant enhancements in tools and services make investing in integratingLOB systems with Office client applications a very practical and viablesolution to addressing “The Results Gap.”

Scenarios and Opportunities forIntegrating LOB Systems with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

While the benefits of investing inMicrosoft Office client integration is generally obvious, the scenarios andopportunities for integrating LOB systems with Windows SharePoint Services andthe Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is initially not very clear to the broadercommunity. This section will attempt to de-mystify this subject and provide theinformation required to help decision makers make a call on whether SharePointintegration is an investment that could benefit their OBA solutionrequirements. While it is not essential that an OBA solution must integratewith the SharePoint platform, related capabilities will benefit many commoninformation worker solution requirements.

It is first and foremost important todevelop a broad understanding of the SharePoint platform and the capabilitiesenabled by Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and the Microsoft OfficeSharePoint Server (MOSS).

Figure 10 presents a layered view of theSharePoint platform.

Figure 10. The SharePoint platform

The SharePoint platform is rapidly morphingfrom primarily being a solution framework for team and enterprise collaborationportals to becoming a comprehensive and viable middle-tier application serverfor LOB systems. While team and enterprise collaboration portals continue to besignificant strengths of the SharePoint platform, the 2007 release of theMicrosoft Office System introduces a number of core middle-tier applicationservices in the SharePoint platform that have a broader applicability in thecontext of extending the capabilities and reach of LOB systems.

In the context of the SharePoint platform,it is important to understand the distinction between Windows SharePointServices (WSS) and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). At the grassroots level, the SharePoint platform is built on top of the broader Microsoftplatform that includes the Microsoft Windows Server operating system, MicrosoftSQL Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server, and the .NET Framework (theSharePoint development platform). Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the coreSharePoint solutions platform that provides the base framework upon whichSharePoint services and solutions are built. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) is built on top of the WSS platform and includes a number of servicesthat span portals, enterprise content management, LOB system integration, andmiddle-tier application services.

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

WSS, at its core, is a Web siteprovisioning engine with built in support for team level collaborationworkspaces in a corporate network environment. WSS sites can also be configuredto publish Internet-facing content and scale out sites to service thousands ofusers in a Web farm deployment. In addition to these out-of-the-boxcapabilities, the WSS platform is also an extensible development platform thatcan serve LOB solution requirements.

If a simple Web portal solution frameworkthat enables internal team collaboration workspaces to support LOB processesand basic data presentation capabilities to extend the reach of businessdata/information to users within and outside an organization is a solutionrequirement, WSS is a solution platform that should not be ignored.

The Web site provisioning (site model andstorage), management, and security capabilities of the WSS platform greatlysimplify the administrative processes involved in deploying, managing, andsecuring both internal team sites and external-facing sites. Abstracted userinterfaces/tools for site administration and a powerful site provisioningengine enable these benefits. Site administrators can have fully functionalinternal and external-facing sites configured and running in a fraction of thetime that it would take to do the same if working directly at the InternetInformation Services (IIS)/ASP.NET layers. Strongly typed .NET object model andWeb service APIs are also provided to enable the implementation of customclients to administer and manage WSS deployments.

WSS integrates tightly with the broader Microsoftplatform. Windows Server is the core operating system on which WSS runs. WSSuses IIS as a front-end Web server to host and scale out Web sites; it usesMicrosoft SQL Server on the back end to store site definitions, content typedefinitions, published content, and configuration data.

The deep integration with ASP.NET and thebroader .NET Framework enable leveraging existing .NET development skills toextend the core WSS platform with custom solution artifacts required to enableLOB data presentation and external facing sites. Customized site templates,page templates, styles and themes, page definitions, Web parts and ASP.NETserver/user controls to display LOB data, content types (lists, columns, anddocument libraries), custom security providers (ASP.NET), and contentcollaboration workflows are solution artifacts that can be implemented byleveraging existing ASP.NET and .NET Framework development skills. The WSSsolution deployment and extensibility frameworks enable the deployment andintegration of such custom solution artifacts in WSS server farms.

The flexibility of WSS as a developmentplatform and its tight integration with the .NET Framework is a double-edgedsword from a custom solution development perspective. LOB system vendors andcorporate IT departments should carefully evaluate the solution requirementsand business constraints to make the right choice in relation to implementingsolutions for application services provided out of the box by Microsoft OfficeSharePoint Server (MOSS).

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS)

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)is built on top of the WSS platform and includes many value adding servicesthat span portals, enterprise content management, LOB system integration, andmiddle-tier application services.

In this context, it is important torecognize that MOSS has an unbreakable dependency on WSS. While it istheoretically possible to custom build services like those offered by MOSS ontop of the WSS platform, doing so would not be a practical investment ofresources. MOSS is a result of many man years of Microsoft research anddevelopment effort invested in developing the related services and corecompetencies. Microsoft’s continued commitment to evolving and adding on to theset of core services will result in newer innovations and richer capabilitiesbeing enabled in the future releases of the product. Investing in andleveraging these core competencies and services based on solution requirementsis the recommended practical direction for LOB system vendors and corporate ITdepartments.

The following table is a summarized listingof the MOSS services relevant to LOB systems and the business capabilities thatthey enable:

It must benoted that the references to “content” in the capabilities described in thepreceding table are not limited to just unstructured documents. In the contextof the extended capabilities, it is important to distinguish between thenotions of SharePoint content types and content as in data and datavisualizations published using the portal page and Web part frameworks.

The SharePoint solutions platform comprisesa fully extensible content type metadata framework that can be used to defineand integrate rich LOB integrated content types into the SharePoint EnterpriseContent management (ECM), workflow, and search services. Content types arephysically surfaced in SharePoint as lists, document libraries, and custommetadata columns associated with lists and document libraries. LOB dataintegration in SharePoint content types can be accomplished in one of thefollowing ways:

• Promoting LOB data-bound fields in unstructured documents to SharePoint document metadata properties. Example: Promoting the Total Expense Amount data-bound field in an Expense Report document template to a document metadata property of the SharePoint document library used to publish and collaborate on individual expense report instances. The promoted property can be used in interesting ways in ECM workflows and by the MOSS Enterprise Search service.
• Leveraging the BDC service to create LOB data-bound custom fields that can be reused as metadata attributes across multiple SharePoint lists and document libraries.
• Creating custom SharePoint LOB data lists by defining or composing LOB data bound fields.

In addition to SharePoint content types,the page and Web part frameworks can also be used to present views of LOB datain SharePoint portals. The MOSS Business Data Catalog service includesout-of-the-box Web parts for surfacing LOB data accessing using the BDC servicein MOSS portals. The base Web part framework can also be used to implementcustom LOB data presentation Web parts.

Overall, MOSS offers a compelling set ofpre-packaged services that could add tremendous value in the context of LOBsystems and solutions. Investing custom development efforts in building similarservices would be a wasted effort for reasons mentioned earlier in thissection.

Technology/Development Skill Investments

As in the case of OBAs thatextend/customize the Microsoft Office client applications, the tight alignmentand integration of the SharePoint platform with the broader Microsoft platformand the .NET Framework imply that all related technology and skill investmentscan be used in full capacity to integrate LOB systems with WSS and MOSS. VisualStudio .NET and managed .NET programming languages (Visual C# and Visual Basic.NET) are the primary tools to build OBAs that integrate with the SharePointplatform. This trend will continue into the future. Visual Studio .NET projecttemplates for SharePoint development further simplify the development process.Governance of related development efforts can also be achieved throughintegration with the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server or other similarsystems used for .NET development projects. These significant enhancements intools and services make investing in integrating LOB systems with theSharePoint platform a very practical and viable solution when there arecompelling business requirements for doing so.

OBA Capabilities

The following table summarizes the core OBAplatform capabilities in relation to each of the solution requirementsidentified as being crucial to bridging “The Results Gap.” Links to relatedscenarios, demos, and resources are provided to illustrate some of thecapabilities. The capabilities illustrated in the referenced scenarios/demosare not intended to be all encompassing and comprehensive. They merelyillustrate some of the OBA solution possibilities. The OBA solution platformcan be used to implement functionally richer and more complete end to end scenariosin comprehensive real world LOB system integration solutions.

OBAs—A Silver Bullet or Not?

While there are numerous compellingscenarios and opportunities for integrating LOB systems with the MicrosoftOffice System, it must also be noted that Office integration is not astand-alone 360-degree silver bullet for all problems pertaining to unlockingthe value of LOB systems.

Poorly designed information worker businessprocesses for instance result in problems that cannot be solved by justenabling Office integrated façades. Designing optimal business processes fromthe ground up and making the right Office integration investments are crucialto delivering compelling user and process centric experiences.

Placing Office clients in front of everyuser across all levels of an organization is not an optimal investment, either.One-off transaction–oriented operational workers like service technicians,machine operators, and order-entry clerks deal with small and specific subsetsof transactional data. These users may not be familiar with businessproductivity applications, and they generally feel comfortable working with theproprietary and structured LOB client UIs that they have been trained to use.Re-training such users in the Office client applications in lieu of the limitedand structured scope of their functional requirements may not materialize significantbusiness value. Identifying users who execute (or would like to execute) thebulk of their job functions in business productivity applications and targetingrelated scenarios is the recommended approach.

Finally, a poorly implemented user experience/interfacewill face adoption challenges no matter how it is surfaced and even if as anOBA solution. Thoroughly understanding the functional requirements ofinformation workers, storyboarding Microsoft Office integrated userexperiences, prototyping solutions, and conducting usability studies up-frontand throughout the formal development cycle are mandatory steps in OBA SDLCs asin all other software projects.

Net-Net: Well-designed OBA solutions can besilver bullets to address information worker productivity gaps in relation toLOB systems. However, OBAs are not all-in-one 360-degree solutions for allproblems pertaining to the usage of LOB systems.

The Business Benefits ofIntegrating LOB Systems with the Microsoft Office System

The business benefits of integrating LOBsystems with the Microsoft Office System are many and compelling. The followingare the top three and most significant:

1. Unlocking the value of LOB system investments and extending their reach by enabling information workers to seamlessly access LOB data and execute related actions from within the comfort zones of broadly deployed and widely popular Microsoft Office business productivity applications. This is a proven recipe to bridge “The Results Gap” (see the OBA Evidence in the LOB Marketplace section of this paper for related evidence).
2. Integrating with and leveraging the core competencies of an established platform in addressing “The Results Gap.” This is a very significant benefit that eliminates the need for proprietary and expensive platform level investments to address the related solution requirements. It is also significant from the perspective of continued future platform advancements (which will be many in the time to come, considering the focused Microsoft research and development commitment to this space) being readily accessible and available for uptake.
3. The ability to fully leverage existing investments and competencies in the broader Microsoft platform across all phases of the SDLC.

Part 3– OBAs and the Technology Landscape

This section introduces some core topicsrelated to the positioning of OBAs in the context of the broader technologylandscape.

OBAs and Composite Solutions

Composite business applications aresolutions that are built by weaving together reusable and configurable solutionartifacts. A composite solution platform must enable a framework that supportsbuilding reusable solution artifacts and composing solutions by assembling andintegrating a relevant set of reusable solution artifacts. The reusablesolution artifacts are implemented by IT/Development based on userrequirements. Solution composition is typically performed by power businessusers/analysts and at times by IT when business users do not possess the basicskill set required to compose custom solutions. A composite solution platformcan deliver unparalleled productivity in both cases if leveraged as intended.

The Microsoft Office System was designedfrom ground up to support solution composition. Figure 11 illustrates theopportunities for reusable solution artifacts at the various solution layersthat can be used to compose solutions that integrate with the Microsoft OfficeSystem.

Figure 11. The Microsoft Office System as a composite applicationplatform

Enabling solution composition requiresdisciplined design and development efforts. Without the right set of reusablesolution artifacts, the benefits of composite solutions cannot be materializedeven on the most robust composite solution platform.

The Microsoft Office System is designedfrom the ground up to support solution composition. Tools and services toenable related development and composition activities are providedout-of-the-box. However, it is up to the developers and users to fully takeadvantage of these capabilities. Empowering the business users to self-composesolutions and investing in the design and development of reusable andconfigurable domain-specific solution artifacts, must be embraced as coretenets to deliver on this premise.

Sample Scenario:

With the right set of reusable solutionartifacts, a Plant Floor Manager could self-compose a role-tailored SharePointbusiness portal that includes the following solution artifacts:

1. A KPI scorecard that enumerates operational key performance indicators to facilitate the monitoring of plant floor operations.
2. A graphical representation of an interactive plant floor map that enables the detection and analysis of real time exception conditions.
3. A list of active safety incidents recorded in the plant floor and their current status.
4. Quick links to frequently accessed resources, including a link to launch an e-form in the browser to fill out and submit a new safety incident report modeled as a SharePoint content type with an associated routing workflow (implemented using Windows Workflow Foundation) to locate and engage a service technician for incident resolution.
5. An Excel Services Chart that renders a graphical display of plant production performance over time.
6. A list of shift workers and their current clocked-in status.

View the Shift Foreman Portal demo of the ManufacturingPlant Floor Analytics OBA Reference Application to see a working instanceof the described portal.

The online MSDN book on BuildingComposite Applications using the Microsoft Platform and the Microsoft OfficeSystem contains additional detailed information on this topic.

OBAs and Service Orientation (SOA and S+S)

Service enablement is a core tenet that isdeeply integrated into the design of the Microsoft Office System.Service-oriented architectures in the context of LOB systems comprise bothservice provider components and service consumer components that integrate andinterface with each other to materialize a service-oriented solution. In thecontext of the Microsoft Office System, the Microsoft Office clientapplications are service consumers, while the Office servers play a dual roleof being service providers and consumers.

The Microsoft Office client applicationshave deeply integrated support to enable the consumption of services. Thiscapability is core to enabling the integration of LOB data in Office clientintegrated user experiences. LOB data integrated in the Office clientapplications could be sourced from services exposed by on-premise LOB systemsand/or hosted services. Hosted services could be LOB services or genericutility services like those offered by Windows Live. Figure 12 illustrates acustom Outlook message inspector whose UI integrates a list of sales leadsretrieved from a CRM system and the Windows Live Maps and Search services tolook up more information about a sales lead and the location of the lead.

Figure 12. A custom Outlook message inspector

The Office servers are dual-faceted. Whilethey are externally seen as providers of services that can be consumed byOffice client applications and custom clients, their internal implementationsand integration needs also require them to be service consumers. For example,the MOSS BDC service consumes services exposed by LOB systems to access LOBdata and exposes services that enable service consumers to access LOB datausing a unified API. The MOSS Search service is another example that consumesservices exposed by content sources to crawl and generate search indexes, andit exposes services that can consumed by service consumers to execute searchqueries and navigate search results.

Office servers can also serve as serviceproviders in live hosted offerings. The Microsoft Office Live platform is agreat example of an online service offering built-on Windows SharePointServices.

Figure 13 illustrates the service-orientedaspects of integrating LOB systems with the Microsoft Office System inon-premise and hosted deployment models. Integration with external and genericthird-party utility services hosted in the cloud from within both on-premiseand hosted deployments of OBAs, though not explicitly shown in theillustration, can also be achieved.

Figure 13. OBAs and service orientation

OBAs and the Broader MicrosoftUser Experience Platform Initiatives

The deep integration of the MicrosoftOffice System with the broader Microsoft platform and the related benefits fromthe capabilities, development, and SDLC governance perspectives has beenemphasized in the earlier sections of this paper.

A specific topic in relation to thepositioning of OBAs as the preferred solution for surfacing rich informationworker experiences in lieu of cutting-edge Microsoft presentation technologies,such as WPF (rich client), ASP.NET AJAX (Web), and Silverlight (Web), deserves someadditional insight.

Information workers prefer integratedaccess to LOB data and processes from within their comfort zones in familiarbusiness productivity applications, as opposed to having to use proprietary LOBsystem clients. WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight should be viewed astechnologies that can complement and enable richer OBA/information worker userexperiences. WPF can be leveraged when implementing rich client UIs for add-insintegrated into the Microsoft Office client applications. Similarly, bothASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight can be used to implement Web parts, ASP.NET servercontrols, and user controls which can be integrated in SharePoint portals toenable rich and compelling portal user experiences.

From an information worker user experienceperspective, viewing these and other new platform initiatives as complementarycapabilities that can further enrich OBA user experiences is the recommendedapproach.

This is not to say that technologies likeWPF, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight do not have other domain-specific use casesthat extend beyond LOB information worker requirements. As mentioned in thediscussion about whether OBAs are a magical silver bullet, Office integrateduser experiences should not be viewed as a “one size fit all” solution toaddress all user experience and adoption challenges. There are many valid usecases for custom rich client applications built using frameworks like WPF, andfor non-SharePoint Web experiences built using frameworks like ASP.NET AJAX andSilverlight. Some examples include LOB system user interfaces for operationalusers who are not familiar with business productivity client applications andWeb site deployments that do not have requirements for a site provisioningengine or rich collaboration and LOB data integration capabilities.

Part 4– OBA Opportunities and Evidence

This final section details OBA investmentopportunities for LOB system vendors and corporate IT departments to bridge“The Results Gap” in their LOB solution offerings and deployments. Examples ofreal-world evidence are also provided to support the described investmentopportunities.

OBA Opportunities for LOB SolutionVendors

Integrating with and leveraging the corecompetencies of the Microsoft Office System is a tremendous opportunity forvendors of packaged LOB systems that run on Windows operating systems to bridge“The Results Gap” in their product offerings.

Releasing optional Microsoft Officeintegrated add-ons for selected business processes is a viable short-termapproach that could be taken (examples: SAP Duet andthe MicrosoftDynamics Office snap-ins) to address information worker productivityproblems in released versions of product offerings.

For future product versions, there is acompelling and practical opportunity for LOB system vendors to considerinvesting in and delivering OBAs as the primary out-of-the-box informationworker interfaces to access their systems. This approach would be similar tothe highly successful decision taken by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product teamto deliver a 100-percent Microsoft Outlook–integrated rich client experience inversion 3.0 of the product. A similar investment that is based on integratingwith one or more Office business productivity applications and potentially theSharePoint platform is an equally viable option for other generic anddomain-specific front-office LOB systems. Examples of this include LOBsolutions for supplier relations management, expense management, human resourcemanagement, health plan management, financial services, and manufacturingexecution systems.

When pursuing an investment in a100-percent OBA solution, it is crucial to thoroughly document all relatedbusiness processes and identify the right Microsoft Office integrationopportunities. Engaging with the information workers/business users who willuse the solution during the early stages of the SDLC is vital to ensuringsuccess. The business users should be involved in documenting and validatingthe business processes, assumptions, user experience designs, and proof-of-conceptstoryboards.

Compiling business process storyboards andtagging predefined icons to identify the user roles and business productivityapplications and devices used at each stage is a recommended approach todocument and validate business processes. Figure 14 illustrates a samplebusiness process storyboard. This will enable a validated understanding of howa process is executed in the real world, and it will help identify the rightbusiness productivity applications and devices within which information workeruser experiences must be enabled to mirror the real-world information work asclosely as possible in the system.

Figure 14. A business process storyboard

After a collection of all the businessprocess storyboards relevant to a system is compiled, it is possible to performa consolidated analysis and identify common patterns. Reusable implementationframeworks can then be implemented for the patterns to help materializeindividual scenario instances. For example, the Assemble response and Approveresponse phases in the sample Lead-to-Invoice business process depicted inFigure 11 are also fairly common steps in other business processes. From thecompiled process templates, it would be possible to identify that MicrosoftWord and Microsoft Outlook are the business productivity applications fromwithin which information workers would like to execute these tasks. Therequirement for a document approval workflow to support the approval process isalso a common requirement that could be identified by studying the businessprocesses. This information could be translated to requirements for genericcapabilities to enable composing business responses in Microsoft Word byintegrating relevant LOB data, associating approval workflows with individualinstances by leveraging SharePoint, and receiving notifications for workflowtasks and being to complete the tasks from within Microsoft Outlook. Theserequirements translate to solution patterns that can then be implemented tosupport materializing individual instances.

Some important requirements may not havesupporting patterns and will need to be implemented as one-off features thatare integrated into the broader solution.

The following are some additional advancedISV opportunities that extend beyond integrating with the Microsoft OfficeSystem from within pre-packaged solutions deployed at customer sites:

1. Implementing and delivering domain specific reusable OBA solution artifacts that can be assembled and configured by business users to compose composite solutions.
2. Implementing and delivering hosted LOB solutions on the Microsoft Office Live platform.
3. Implementing and delivering self-hosted LOB solutions as live services by integrating with Microsoft Office Servers on the back-end and enabling hooks to integrate with and use desktop client investments in the Microsoft Office client applications.

All in all, integrating with and leveragingthe competencies of the Microsoft Office System is a compelling and practicalopportunity for LOB system vendors to design and deliver user andprocess-centric solutions that align closely with real-world information workand enable customers to unlock the full value of their investments.

Figure 15 highlights some of the LOBsolution ISV opportunities in the broader OBA opportunities landscape.

Figure 15. OBA opportunities for LOB system vendors

OBA Opportunities and Challengesin Corporate IT Departments

LOB system investments that are of concernto corporate IT departments include a combination of one or more home-grown LOBapplications that are regularly maintained and periodically enhanced,off-the-shelf vendor solutions customized to meet an organization’s businessmodel and requirements, and legacy systems in a maintenance mode.

Addressing the solution requirements tobridge “The Results Gap” can help significantly optimize the cycles spent by ITstaff in educating business users and servicing information worker requests fordata. This optimization if materialized will enable IT staff to spend a greaterpercentage of their time on higher-value IT functions.

In environments where LOB systeminvestments are 100-percent off-the-shelf vendor solutions customized to meetan organization’s business model and requirements, functional requirements tobridge “The Results Gap” through a deep integration with the Microsoft OfficeSystem could be pushed downstream to the solution vendor(s). However, in thereal world, such requests may never materialize. Requirements to integratevendor solutions with home-grown applications and legacy systems introduce adifferent a set of challenges.

When faced with the task of building OBAs toenhance information worker productivity (because of either lack of support fromthe LOB system vendor(s) or the home-grown/legacy nature of existing LOBsystems), corporate IT departments have two options: apply the design anddevelopment practices described for LOB system vendors to custom implement OBAsand partner with and leverage the services of LOB solution integrators toachieve the same.

Adopting an incremental approach to surfaceOBAs for one or more business processes at a time by starting with thehigher-priority processes and gradually working downward through the list istypically a more practical approach in corporate IT environments where time andbudgetary constraints are usually tight. The flip side and risks of doing thisinclude lack of consistency in design/implementation approaches and thepotential for the eventual solution(s) to appear as individual silos versus aconsolidated whole. These risks could be mitigated by adopting rigoroussoftware engineering practices and mandating the identification and reuse ofpatterns in every iteration.

When faced with the task of integratingmultiple disparate systems to materialize OBAs, investing efforts inservice-enabling access to data from across the various systems is therecommended first step. Services are the recommended interfaces to access LOBdata in OBAs. Services will also serve as conduits to leveraging the MOSSservices like the Business Data Catalog (BDC) and Enterprise Search.Integrating with the MOSS BDC service will enable a unified set of APIs andinterfaces to access LOB data from across multiple disparate LOB systems. TheMOSS Enterprise Search service can use the BDC investments to enable anintegrated LOB data search experience that can be used from within SharePointportals, Microsoft Office Client Applications, and custom clients.

All in all, OBAs present compellingopportunities and interesting challenges in the corporate IT environment. Theoptions and approaches described in this section can be applied effectively toaddress the challenges and enable OBA solutions that help bridge “The ResultsGap” in corporate LOB system investments.

OBA Opportunities for LOB SolutionIntegrators

OBAs also present compelling opportunitiesfor LOB solution integrators. LOB solution integrator opportunities surfacewhen LOB system vendor offerings fall short in bridging “The Results Gap”and/or when undertaking related custom development efforts within a corporateIT setting is a not a viable option. Such circumstances will be fairly commonand will open great opportunities for competitive LOB solution integrationservice offerings.

Developing and establishing OBA-centricpractices and services is a highly recommended investment for LOB solutionintegrators.

Figure 16 highlights some of the LOBsolution integrator opportunities in the broader OBA opportunities landscape.

Figure 16. OBA opportunities for LOB solution integrators

OBA Evidence in the LOB Marketplace

OBAs are being rapidly adopted as a viablesolution to bridge “The Results Gap” in LOB system investments.

Leading ERP/CRM system vendors like SAP(Duet) and Microsoft (Microsoft Dynamics CRM) have successfully leveraged theMicrosoft Office System to deliver compelling OBA experiences that have beenembraced by related user communities.

The business solutions space is still avery open playing field with numerous opportunities to tap into themultibillion dollar market. The SMB market in specific is a multibillion dollarsegment by itself with no clear industry leader and a plethora ofopportunities. The widespread fragmentation in the business sizes, reach, anddomain-specific verticals within the broader market segments can be seen as anopportunity for multiple players to co-exist and thrive.

LOB solutions that are best aligned with anindustry’s core competencies, which can adapt easily to changing domainrequirements, and which can align/integrate seamlessly with real-world businessprocesses and user experience requirements, will have a definite edge overcompetitive offerings that fall short in one or more of these aspects. In thisregard, the Microsoft Office System and OBAs enable a tremendous opportunity,which, if widely adopted, has the potential to even the playing field inenabling user and process centric experiences that bridge “The Results Gap.”This would enable LOB system vendors to focus their efforts on deliveringservices that enable the core competencies of their target industries and onadapting to evolving industry requirements.

LOB system vendors and solution integratorsare starting to realize the OBA opportunity. A number of vendors and solutionintegrators have started execution to materialize this opportunity, resultingin the steady formation of a vibrant community and eco system. OBA Central is the online portal for thiscommunity. Readers should explore this community to get a feel of the OBAmomentum and to explore the existing OBA market evidence.

Conclusion

LOB systems play a crucial role insupporting the functioning of businesses across a wide range of industries andmarkets. “The Results Gap” described in this paper plagues a significantmajority of existing LOB system deployments. This trend will continue ifsolutions to bridge the gap are not implemented to unlock the value of LOBsystem investments across the broad spectrum of business application users.Integrating with and leveraging the core competencies of a platform vendorestablished in and committed for the long term to IW productivity solutions isthe most practical approach to bridging “The Results Gap” in existing LOBsystem deployments and from inside out in future releases of LOB systems. TheMicrosoft Office System presents a compelling, practical, and dependableopportunity for LOB system vendors and corporate IT departments whose LOBsolutions run on the Microsoft platform to materialize such integration andunlock the full value of LOB system investments. This paper presented anoverview of the related capabilities and scenarios and described the relatedopportunities for LOB system vendors, solution integrators, and corporate ITdepartments.

The following links point totop-of-the-line resource centers that can be explored to gain further insightinto the technology aspects of building Office Business Applications and therelated market momentum and opportunities:

TheMicrosoft Office Business Applications Home Page: The Microsoft.com homepage for Office Business Applications.

TheMicrosoft Office System Architecture Center: The OBA architecture resourcecenter. Contains links to comprehensive end-to-end OBA referencearchitecture/application packs, white papers, articles, and Web casts.

Office BusinessApplications Developer Portal: The one-stop shop for OBA developer content.

OBACentral: OBA Central is as a vibrant and active online community withactive participation from Microsoft, Microsoft OBA ISVs and services partners,and customers. OBA Central makes it easy to connect and to find OBA solutionsand services that address your business and technical needs.