K2 "BlackPearl" Beta 1 TR2
On Mach 26th, SourceCode Technology Holdings will release the Beta 1 Technical Refresh 2 of their 
upcoming K2 product code-named “BlackPearl”. If you’ve never heard of SourceCode they are best known for their workflow product called K2.NET. The new product is currently branded K2 “blackpearl” but there is no word yet on what the final name will be. I will just call it K2 from here on. You can get a preview of K2 at this teaser site.
I spent some time at SourceCode’s North American head quarters in Redmond last week for some in-depth demos, and I was really impressed with what I saw. While the old K2.Net product was pretty nifty and quite successful (I blogged about it here), this new product is going to make K2 a world-class player in the workflow and Business Process Management (BPM) arena. In fact, this new product is so rich in functionality it defies description, and I think it breaks new ground that no competitors are covering yet, on any platform. As I was going through a demo of the new functionality my mind was racing, thinking of all the new possibilities this technology brings to the table. I was also struggling to come up with a concise way of describing it. After much reflection I came up with “Business Process Oriented Development Platform”. Here’s why…
K2 is still a workflow product (now built on top of Microsoft’s Workflow Foundation), but it also becomes a true BPM platform, something the old version was not. K2 is also strong as an Enterprise Application Integration platform (leveraging the new BizTalk/.NET Adapter Framework built on Windows Communication Framework). Last but not least, K2 is also an Application Server with strong support for rapid application development (leveraging SOA standards and principles, SQL Server, the .Net Framework, Visual Studio, and the Office Platform). So it is a complete application server and development platform with a strong workflow engine at its core, and a very flexible integration platform built-in.
There is way too much new functionality to do it justice in a single blog post so I will post a series of articles as I take the latest beta version through its paces.