Microsoft, Siebel Aim for Application Integration

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Microsoft Monday announced a “major expansion” of its
strategic relationship with Siebel Systems , under which
the two firms will jointly engineer Siebel’s customer relationship
management (CRM) software for Microsoft’s .NET architecture.

Together, the two companies hope to capitalize on the possibilities of Web
services by utilizing the technology’s capabilities to provide application
integration above and beyond system integration.

Through the deal, Siebel has agreed to make Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET
development suite its primary development toolset, and joint engineering
teams based in development laboratories in Redmond, Wash. and San Mateo,
Calif. will benchmark test, cross-certify and integrate Siebel applications
with Microsoft platform software.

The partners said their pact will focus on three initiatives:

Implementing and executing Siebel Integration Business Processes on
Universal Application Network using Microsoft’s BizTalk Server and Visual
Studio .NET design tools
Enhancing the interactivity of the Siebel Smart Client using .NET
technologies, allowing Siebel’s eBusiness Applications to integrate more
tightly with Microsoft Office, and to support deployment on emerging mobile
devices
Optimizing Siebel’s eBusiness Applications for the Windows Server
operating systems, SQL Server and the .NET Framework.

By combining Universal Application Network and BizTalk Server, the partners
hope to give joint customers the ability to deploy cross-application,
industry-specific business processes that can connect all of an
enterprise’s applications — not just CRM, enterprise resource management
(ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) apps — in ways that support the
customer’s unique needs.

BizTalk Server will bring that capability to Universal Application Network
through its support for the BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language
for Web Services) specification, published by the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization in August. An
XML flow language, BPEL4WS allows companies to describe business processes
that include multiple Web services and standardize message exchange
internally and between partners.

Meanwhile, the work on Smart Client is intended to create a better user
interface for Siebel applications, as well as to extend the firm’s
eBusiness Applications to a broader array of mobile devices, including
smart devices.

The companies agreed to put a multimillion dollar marketing investment
behind the deal, with a single point of interaction for joint customers
across sales, marketing and customer support.