Today we announced that the upcoming release of BizTalk (BizTalk Server 2009 R2) has been renamed to BizTalk Server 2010.

BizTalk Server 2009 R2 was planned to be a focused release to deliver support for Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010. Our original plan was to name the release as BizTalk Server 2009 R2 as aligning BizTalk releases to core server platform releases is very important for our customers. 

However, over the past year we got lot of feedback from our key customers and decided to incorporate few key asks from our customers in this release. Based on customer value we are delivering, and the positive feedback we are getting from our early adopter customers we feel the release has transitioned from minor release (BizTalk Server 2009 R2) to a major release (BizTalk Server 2010).

Following is list of key capabilities we have added to the release:

1. Enhanced trading partner management that will enable our customers to manage complex B2B relationships with ease
2. Increase productivity through enhanced BizTalk Mapper. These enhancements are critical in increasing productivity in both EAI and B2B solutions; and a favorite feature of our customers.
3. Enable secure data transfer across business partners with FTPS adapter
4. Updated adapters for SAP 7, Oracle eBusiness Suite 12.1, SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2
5. Improved and simplified management with updated System Center management pack
6. Simplified management through single dashboard which enables IT Pros to backup and restore BizTalk configuration
7. Enhanced performance tuning capabilities at Host and Host Instance level
8. Continued innovation in RFID Space with out of box event filtering and delivery of RFID events

In addition to all the great value the release provides, customers will benefit from support window being reset to 10 years (5 years mainstream and 5 years extended support). This highlights Microsoft’s long term commitment to BizTalk Server product.

We are on schedule to deliver BizTalk Server 2010 in later part of CY2010. This name change will not impact the RTM dates.