Microsoft OBAs are composite applications built upon the 2007 Microsoft Office system, utilizing the familiar and easy-to-use interfaces of Microsoft Office products and connecting to additional Microsoft technologies (such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) or other back-office systems. The resulting solution is built to model how people work within financial services firms day-to-day, integrating with existing workflows, reducing training efforts and trimming development time.

"Financial services firms are seeking to leverage information technology to respond to volatile and evolving market conditions, while at the same time making investments that integrate into the way people actually work," said Mike Walker, architecture strategist for the Worldwide Financial Services Group at Microsoft. "The OBA Component Library gives firms a head start toward developing solutions by providing real-world scenarios that illustrate how new business applications can be built, and existing systems improved, using Microsoft Office technologies to overcome common challenges."

The Financial Services OBA Component Library consists of more than 90 components that serve as common financial methodologies and standard Web service protocols. Using the structure of a composite design, developers, partners and financial services firms are able to assemble OBA components into existing or new custom solutions built on Microsoft application platform technologies, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server -- reducing development costs and augmenting existing service-oriented architecture initiatives through interoperability.

Divided into scenarios for the banking, insurance and capital markets industries, the Financial Services OBA Component Library provides interoperability through Web services and industry standards, such as the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), Financial Information eXchange (FIX) and Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX), to illustrate the following:

• Banking: lending reference architecture, common online banking components for consumer portals and broker commission scenarios
• Insurance: claims processing, channel sales, and life and annuity scenarios leveraging Microsoft Silverlight and SharePoint Server for a rich user interface
• Capital markets: structured product scenarios utilizing Office Open XML