I have spent the past few years living with data models as I've worked with the ADO.NET Entity Framework. It has changed the way I approach creating data driven applications.

Data Models are a critical part of Microsoft's data access strategy.

But models are not only used to describe your application's data.

You may have heard of Oslo, a Microsoft tool which has been on the horizon for a while. There were a number of presentations on it at PDC.

We can envision our applications in a model - similar to a workflow. But Oslo takes the application model one very important step further. It provides the application itself as a model. The pieces of logic necessary to drive your application can be thought of as model elements. Some of these elements (modules) are already existing - e.g., .NET classes and functionality. Some you will write yourself. But the modules aren't constructed in the same way that we do it today with .NET. Our current paradigm is that code needs to be compiled into APIs and deployed. Oslo is quite different.

All of these bits of functionality will be provided to users in the same way that data is provided. You could even store the modules in a database to be accessed on an as needed basis.

The application bits themselves, therefore, become part of the SOA paradigm, because the logic can be delivered through services.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this but find the whole concept fascinating. Here are some resources where you can check out Oslo yourself:

Oslo Developer Center
(Look for the January SDK)

A few of the Blogs: Don Box, Chris Sells, Doug Purdy

PDC Videos Filter on Oslo. There are 5 sessions.