Microsoft shutters BizTalk.org
eWeek | at | by Mike
With little fanfare, Microsoft Corp. has shuttered its BizTalk.Org XML schema warehouse. According to a mid-July posting to the XML-dev list maintained by the OASIS standards organization, Microsoft execs claimed the ubiquity of the XML data format, coupled with the preponderance of other XML schema repositories, eliminated the need for BizTalk.Org. The BizTalk.Org page now refers interested parties to Microsoft's BizTalk Server product home page, with no BizTalk.Org information available.
BizTalk.Org was one of a number of XML schema consortia founded in the late 1990s. These consortia, which included OASIS' XML.Org, RosettaNet and the Object Management Group, were designed to house the growing number of business-to-business schema under development by companies across the vertical-market spectrum.