Freak of Nature - Luis Lobo Borobia

Please, first read “Workflow software: I’m calling the bluff.”

Now that I have your attention back, please follow me til the end.

First of all, lets get one thing clear. Biztalk is not a Workflow solution, nor a Workflow Server. Just an orchestrator of components, that allow you to transform the information in a somehow “easy” way from one schema to other schema.

Serious Workflow engine provides a lot more than that. Even, the real Workflow Engine is just a part of it. Have you ever heard of FileNet? BPM? I have been implementing successful workflow solutions since 10 years ago. We have business designers. They are consultants that only take care of desiging the workflow solution, and maybe some stored procedures.

Every application has a way to persist their information, so, whoever told you Workflow is a way to easily persist your objects, they lied to you.

A serious production workflow solution (lets call it BPM solution) is more than just a state machine. That is Workflow Foundation concept. Real workflow vendors have a Business Process Manager, Business Process Framework, some kind of Electronic form feature, with electronic signatures, a Business Process Analyzer, a Business Process Simulator, a Business Activity Monitor. And all integrates with the Enterprise Content Management system. And yes. you can deploy really fast, an integrated solution that gives a user the functionallity they need. Insurance Claims, Account Payables and I could be hours talking of successful implementations.

I am already hearing you laughing while you are reading it. It’s OK, sometimes people laught of the unknown, by ingenuity, lack of confidence, lack of experience on the field. Its OK. It happens to all. But, don’t let yourself base your thoughts only on one product. Have you heard of EMC BPM, IBM FileNet P8, (ex)Fuego, now BEA BPM. As you started, yes, you may be wrong, I may be wrong. But I can give your business designer. I can give you successful BPM implementations. And I invite you to visit those links. And I even invite you to watch for a demo.

And I am not a sales man. I have coded in assembler, pascal, C, C++, Smalltalk, VB 4,5,6, VB.NET, C#, Prolog. So, please, don’t get me wrong. Its just like everything. You could do that all from scratch, yes, of course. You could code from the start to the beginning. But this field is really mature, provides with complete frameworks to work with them. Easily. Productive. Its a proven solution. And its not just bluffing. Its for real.

Respectfully,

Luis Lobo Borobia

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