At PDC, Windows Workflow Foundation was announced. I got my first look at Don Box and Dharma Shukla's  talk which was excellent.

All our applications contain workflow, some is associated with the application itself such as screen transitions etc., but the interesting stuff is the stuff we code. When we write logic into our forms or web pages to perform calculations or manipulate data we are writing "activities", when we stitch these together with if, then, else, while logic and code up a "process" we are really writing workflow. The power comes when we can un-embed these activities from our apps and stitch them together in reusable workflows. The concept is powerful and is the reason for the success of Biztalk. Writing apps in this way was not an option for developers until now, Windows Workflow Foundation, is part of WinFX and makes it available to developers.

During the talk Don and Dharma built a simple workflow. They included a pause activity. Then they remotely viewed the workflow from another mahcine using only a browser, they edited the workflow, and then they were able to view the in memory jobs in train and sitting at the pause step and apply the new changes. It brought the house down.

I've been playing around with it for the past two days and its very powerful. You can choose various different formats including State Machines and its relatively simple to use. If you want to get started then there are some great resources here (this is where devs are going to share their activitites). If you start looking and wonder, "Hey, this is Biztalk" then get a good overview of the differences here.