I'm doing some big projects that are starting to introduce workflow concepts inside the business architecture (maybe I'll talk about some of them in the future because I think they can open interesting scenarios for some Microsoft Dynamics products) and many times I advice customers that a powerful Workflow platform "made in Microsoft" will be ready soon.
When I talk about Windows Workflow at meetings, many times I notice that people have doubts: is Windows Workflow useful? Is Windows Workflow powerful? What could be its application scenario?
I think that on a Service Oriented architecture (SOA), Workflows are foundamental. I've printed in my mind a key concept that I'd like everyone could understand:
A complete SOA architecture is made of service-oriented components combinable in business workflows. Thus, every service could be seen as an activity to be executed in a definite order and upon definite conditions. The workflow engine becomes an important infrastructure piece in a SOA environment.
Microsoft believes a lot on Windows Workflow and many future products will be based on this technology, such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft BizTalk Server "vnext", Microsoft Speech Server 2007, Microsoft System Center "Service Desk", Microsoft Identity Integration Server and future Microsoft Dynamics products.
Define a workflow can help a company to adapt its business, to standardize their processes and to be ready for future business changements and needs. Having an adaptable and flexible business process is the future I think.
There's an important aspect that I'm observing every day: there's a big need to be able to define a business workflow graphically: developers will desing the workflow activities and end-users will model the workflow to satisfy their needs. This is the real step to the future.
What we ask to Microsoft is to work hard on providing a powerful Workflow designer that can be deployed to the end-user side and as much intuitive as possible. Having this feature will permit us to start a new generation of dynamic programming.
We're on the right road to have this and exciting news on this field will be available in the future so... believe in Workflows please! 