Did you know that in SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft is introducing a new feature known as Business Connectivity Services, or BCS, intended to replace the existing Business Data Catalog functionality?  BCS enhances SharePoint's native capabilities by offering a framework for streamlined development of solutions that interact with external systems, in a bi-directional fashion.  BCS leverages the familiar interface for managing list items to be used as the same front end for retrieving and updating data from back-end systems, reducing the need for completely custom developed solutions.  In addition, Microsoft has tooled this feature of the product within SharePoint Designer 2010, enabling it to be readily implemented for a solution without the tedium of manually creating the XML application definition files that the BDC used in the past.