As part of yesterday’s release of Intalio|BPMS 4.0, we have included the first AJAX-powered implementation of the XForms standard developed by the W3C. This technology was created by Orbeon, an Open Source company headquartered in San Mateo, CA. Our partnership with Orbeon was announced today and follows the announcement of our embedding of Celequest’s BAM technology. Similar announcements related to the inclusion of a business rule engine, a meta-data repository, and a content management system will follow in the coming weeks.

This partnership with Orbeon means a lot to me personally because I helped create the company back in 2000. I got Alessandro and Eric their first investor and came up with the name for the company. I do not own any shares in the business, but I really enjoy witnessing the success of a venture I am associated with, especially when such success comes from the development of an innovative business model or the invention of a new technology. In Orbeon’s case, both aspects are represented, and I look forward to a very fruitful relationship.

The inclusion of Orbeon’s technology into our product makes Intalio|BPMS the first BPM solution to adopt a Web 2.0 model for its workflow user interface. Of course, using AJAX for supporting XForms is only the very first step. Following Sandy Kemsley’s suggestion to use BPM for integrating multiple Web 2.0 services together, here are some of the features that we are thinking about adding to our product down the road:

RSS Feeds
Feeds could be used to broadcast the changes applied to a process model, the assignment of tasks to a certain user, or the notification that a process instance has reached a certain stage or generated a specific exception.

Weblogs and Wikis
Weblogs and Wikis could be used to support the documentation of business processes being developed or used in production. A specific blog could be created for each project and would track the changes applied to process models. Non-technical activities related to the deployment of processes, such as staff training or partner enablement, could be managed using project management services such as Basecamp.

Online Calendars
Online calendars such as 30 Boxes could be used to track the allocation of shared resources and manage the scheduling and distribution of tasks among groups. They could also be used to outline milestones in the execution of specific process instances, or specify deadlines for their timely completion.

Online Spreadsheets
Online spreadsheets such as Zoho Sheet could be used by business analysts to define business rules and their parameters, through a user interface similar to the excellent Corticon Business Rules Modeling Studio.

This list is only the beginning, and I expect it to grow as more and more Web 2.0 services become available, while more and more people get familiar with BPM 2.0 platforms such as Intalio|BPMS. In the meantime, if you feel like you would get a kick out of developing one of these mashups, just let me know. I have recently setup a Basecamp account to manage such projects and would very much welcome your contributions.