Microsoft launches .NET-based SMB portal

MarketWatch: CRM, May 22, 2003

Microsoft Business Solutions cranked up its product roll-out program yesterday when it announced the availability of Microsoft Business Portal, thereby adding another application to its modest set of .NET-based and Microsoft Business Framework compliant applications.

Offering conventional portal functionality, the product is designed to enable employees, customers and suppliers to access information and processes from a browser. It uses a role-based model to present relevant information, comes with pre-defined role and related processes and hooks into the security services provided by the underlying .NET platform. It is also integrated with the division's Great Plains and Solomon business applications, providing out-of-the-box access to business information pages, standard reports and ad hoc information queries, and can be extended to take information from external sources.

Microsoft Business Framework (MBF) is a work in progress, a foundation platform that is destined to support the basket of disparate applications offered under the Microsoft Business Solutions banner, both current and next-generation, and will run on top of the .NET platform. It will consist of two layers: base-level common services covering integration and including workflow and security functionality whose purpose will be to bind together the processes typically run within application software; and a layer consisting of common components and processes used by application software including object entities such as customer or account definitions, for example. Microsoft will then offer another layer of functionality in the form of business applications to provide for CRM, SCM or ERP capability.

The new portal product has an important strategic role to play during the transition to .NET and the MBF as Microsoft aims to build up compliant applications over time, facilitating integration between them and existing applications via the portal. As older applications are replaced, the plan is that the portal can be reconfigured to reflect back-end changes.

Microsoft Business Portal is available now in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and will be released in the UK, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific in the third quarter of 2003. It forms part of Microsoft Business Solutions Foundation Layer and is available to customers of Great Plains 7.0 or higher or Solomon 5.0 or higher who have a current enhancement plan. User access licenses are priced at $45 to $65 per user, based on the number of licenses purchased.