EDI And BizTalk
BizTalk Server 2004 has some limited EDI functionality that will help you if all you need to do is exchange or transform a few simple EDI docs. I never understood why Microsoft never paid more attention to the still surprisingly strong EDI market...
If you need to implement a full-fledge BizTalk/EDI solution, I strongly recommend you look at the Covast Accelerator for BizTalk Server 2004. This product handles all the EDI comlexities like batch mode and EDI envelopes. It also allows you to connect to VANs and even do AS2 with an optional adapter. It comes with a repository of just about every EDI schema worth having. This tool will save you a lot of work.
The combination of BizTalk and Covast provides a pretty compelling solution. These two tools allow you to cost effectively build a B2B infrastructure that will enable you to do traditional EDI over VANs, or over HTTP, AS2, FTP, etc. It also allows you to do any type of XML messaging, flat file exchanges, Web Services, etc. etc. On top of that, this infrastructure will integrate seemlessly to your SAP or other ERP back-end.You can do all this for less than the price of a traditional EDI product, and have a solution that is flexible and maintainable to boot. Best fo all, you get to do all your development in Visual Studio.NET!
Highly recommended.