BizTalk is designed to sort out many of these problems. The development encouraged by BizTalk should allow the process to be driven by business managers, rather than by technologists. For example, Microsoft is pushing a development process that begins with a manager using a tool such as the Visio diagramming application to draw flow charts or Gantt charts. The manager then takes the resulting diagrams to the company's programmers, who write code to implement each of the steps in the diagram. WebMethods, for example, last month announced a product called Business Integrator that works almost in reverse.
Programmers create components representing enterprise applications.
Analysts then take those components and manipulate them like a flow chart, drawing lines between components to represent business processes. Integration code is then automatically generated. The approach suggested by Microsoft and WebMethods is almost a visual form of Cobol, where business analysts use a very high-level language to describe business rules and processes. However, this time no one is under the false illusion that business analysts can be expected to produce workable code. Microsoft says that the advantage of producing code by using a business chart is that it gives developers a far more intimate knowledge of the processes involved.