Microsoft has long been committed to the e-commerce arena—from Site Server to Commerce Server 2000, Commerce Server 2002, Feature Pack
1, and Commerce Server 2007, continuing innovation and integration has been a guiding principle. Over the years, fuelled by soaring interest in online shopping, Commerce Server has remained at the forefront of e-commerce innovation and has achieved some key milestones along the way:
Commerce Server pioneered the concept of pipelines in Microsoft BizTalk Server
Many features originally found in Commerce Server are now found in Microsoft Expression design software, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft SQL Server, among others
Commerce Server was also the first .NET enterprise server
But selling products online only scratches the surface of what is possible. By offering businesses advanced catalogue, profiling, marketing, analytics, and order management systems, Microsoft has developed a core foundation of your e-commerce strategy. This continues to be the enduring value of Commerce Server.
With Commerce Server 2007, Microsoft took Connected Commerce to the next level by helping enterprise organizations better integrate business processes and disparate systems, making it easier than ever to create robust, end-to-end Connected Commerce solutions. Furthermore, it shipped as a production-ready Web application taking full advantage of Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 technology, making it possible to get to market in record time.
That commitment is more relevant today than ever before with changing online business models and the rise of Software-as-a-Service, Web 2.0, Service-Oriented Architecture, and other new media technologies.