Charles Young has put together a superb article that compares Microsoft’s earlier effort in producing a Business Rules Engine, with the upcoming Windows Workflow Foundation that was announced at this year’s PDC. He reports that, although the two mechanisms look similar on the outside, their internals are drastically different. It makes excellent reading, and has much food for tought. His conclusion is summed up:
“Although WF has a basic form of ‘forward chaining’, this mechanism lacks the power of MS BRE’s forward chaining inferencing model, and consequently, WF rules lack the rich, declarative expressivity of rules in MS BRE.”
but the article gives an elegant discussion as to the relative benefits of each mechanism and why WF is better suited for the problems Microsoft is trying to address. Check it out here