Microsoft pushes OBAs to take Office to next level

Microsoft has been quietly adding to the cache of reference applications it hopes will help transform Microsoft Office 2007 from a mere productivity suite to a collaboration tool.

Aiming to help users access data from various enterprise sources through the most common Office tools, Microsoft has created add-ons to Office 2007 that it calls Office Business Applications, or OBAs. They add business processes and intelligence to applications such as Excel and Outlook. Last week, the company quietly unveiled an OBA reference application designed for the health-care industry, and the company is gearing up to make OBAs a core focus at its Worldwide Partner Conference, which will be held next week in Denver.

Microsoft hopes partners and customers will enhance the existing Office applications to take advantage of data and processes stored on the back end -- in places such as SQL Server and CRM and ERP applications, said Daz Wilkin, a program manager for Microsoft's platform strategy group, in an interview in New York this week. Microsoft built Office 2007 and created tie-ins to Microsoft server software such as SQL Server specifically with this in mind.

To help companies build OBAs, Microsoft has been releasing reference applications that provide technical documentation and information on how to build the new functionality using Office 2007. The reference application released last week, Consumer Engagement Reference Architecture for Health Plans, details how health care providers and employers can work together to connect employees with personal trainers using Microsoft Office and Microsoft server software.

The key to the application is how easily it can automate schedules using Office applications such as Outlook, Wilkin said. Improved communication lets a personal trainer handle more clients than he or she normally could, Wilkin said.

Microsoft is encouraging partners to build OBAs as well, since they have already been building custom functionality to help business users access data stores through front-end applications such as the ones in Office, Wilkin said. "People have been able to do this in the past, but now it's a lot better and easier," he said.

Still, Microsoft's current explanation of OBAs is confusing to some of its business partners. "I don't think it's been articulated clearly what OBAs are yet," said one source whose company works with Microsoft and who asked not to be named.

He suggested that OBAs and the links between Office 2007 and back-end applications such as SQL Server and Dynamics CRM are Microsoft's way of making Office more of a platform on which companies can build other applications. That could differentiate it from competitive Office suites such as OpenOffice.org, he said.

Other companies that have been working with Microsoft on OBAs seem to have a better idea of how Microsoft hopes they will work. Construction management company Skanska USA Building Inc. has built an OBA on top of the forthcoming Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 business-intelligence package. Skanska has been a pilot user of PerformancePoint for more than a year.