Nice post Dan and it's all true....wow what a roadmap from there until here, or then until now.
Hope you're all well and kicking goals like the Arsenal the Aussie rugby team .

I thought you should know.....recently announced at the big BizTalk conference known as the SOA and BPM conference at Redmond (put that in your wish list to attend - it would be great!) was the next version of BizTalk - vNext code named 'Oslo' (...checking the north wall.....kccck...clear!.....south....kccck...clear also).

Great to have a plan I reckon! So here's the low down of it.....

Oslo will be:

- timeframe 2009+

- services enabled and model driven

- Have the following components (at this stage):

1. Built on .NET V4.0 framework
2. Server - deeply integrated with WF and WCF to host 'stuff'
3. Services - "BizTalk Services in the cloud stuff"
4. Tools - vs.net "10", app lifecycle
5. Repository - common across management, tools + runtime to manage the 'deployed' bits.

What to do from here - not too much at the moment. It's sort of a nice to know and for those keen at heart go and check out http://labs.BizTalk.net where the current offering is for BizTalk Services V1.0

Register and away you go! Brilliant.

Have fun!