Microsoft, like SAP, is now coining the phrase "business process platform." The concept was first put out there by SAP a couple of years ago to describe the evolution of NetWeaver, its integration platform. In broad terms, the concept of a process platform is meant, I believe, to describe an underlying applications platform that enables users to model, orchestrate, integrate and execute processes quickly and easily, to suit their ever-changing business needs.

I think SAP and Microsoft have the same concept for a business process platform. But the devil, as always, is in the details.

Here's what Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions (the umbrella group for Dynamics ERP and CRM), had to say about Microsoft's business process platform during his keynote address this morning: "Our goal in the future is to provide a business process platform that enables the connected business. We're going to fuse Dynamics and Office together to bring CRM, ERP and business intelligence together to really help make connections between your business vision and software, between people and processes, between business and its constituents, and foster new kinds of relationships."

The biggest announcement during this first day of Convergence, Microsoft's Dynamics user conference in San Diego, is really the Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server (there's not even an acronym to be salvaged out of this unfortunate name). At bottom, it provides a licensing package that makes Dynamics ERP processes available through Office and SharePoint Server. While it's really Microsoft's answer to Duet, the software developed in conjunction with SAP to expose mySAP ERP processes in Office, the Client has an even more compelling intent as a platform for application development.

As I mentioned in my story this morning, Microsoft's intent with the Dynamics Client product is to enable users and partners to build applications on top of Dynamics, using a standardized platform from Microsoft. In the story, I quoted Yvonne Genovese from Gartner as saying Microsoft's platform boils down to a couple of key components: tools from AX, NAV and Office. SharePoint is in the mix there as well, but more as a collaboration tool.

The concept of a platform to enable process integration really requires a couple of key components, as far as I can tell: a modeling environment to model components into a coherent process; an orchestration engine to herd all those components into a cohesive process; actual integration capabilities; and an execution engine to execute the process. There are a lot of other components to be sure, but those seem to be the essentials for a business process platform.

So that leads to some fundamental questions that I'll be asking about while I am here at the show: What are the specific modeling, orchestration, integration and execution components developers (both customers and ISVs) are privy to through Microsoft's business process platform, and are they accessible through the Client license, or is there more required?

During his keynote address, Nadella touched on the integration piece, saying "integration components are a super-important piece of the business process platform. We enabled all of our [Dynamics] products with Web services; now you can see case after case of real world benefits doing that [through Microsoft's Real World SOA announced today]." While Nadella is referring to Microsoft's Web services infrastructure, I want to find out more of what's actually needed for process integration using Microsoft's platform.

As for modeling, Nadella announced the Sure Step Business Modeler, a tool that enables business users to graphically visualize the structure of their business, drill into different roles in the organization and reorganize the structure graphically—essentially a collaboration modeling tool. All cool stuff, but the modeler has another role as well that Nadella mentioned in one line of his keynote: "The Modeler enables you to go forward with a Dynamics implementation and model your software." So there is the modeling component.

But what of the all-important process model execution—really the key to a process platform, it would seem? During a press and analyst Q&A earlier today, Nadella was asked the question of how Microsoft's recently announced Business Process Alliance would enable process execution (the alliance brings together about 10 process model and execution vendors under a single umbrella). Nadalla, amazingly, didn't know about the Alliance, which has been formed by the BizTalk group (that's where process orchestration comes in).

What Nadella did say was telling, but not surprising—that Microsoft is working to reduce the gap between a company's process model and run time. "But we're not there yet," he said.