Microsoft pledges interoperability (and it’s not just about open source)

Microsoft’s announcement this morning to promote interoperability and publish their API and protocol specifications is a major sea change in the industry. Coverage on Microsoft’s announcement at TechCrunch and Slashdot has focused primarily on interoperability with open source solutions, but few have posted about the impact of the changes to their commercial licensing programs such as MCPP and WSPP. This is understandable perhaps because they are very complex agreements, but ultimately the changes to these programs are just as important if not more so as the open source licensing.

For companies developing solutions for the SME market (which is predominantly Windows based), open publishing of Microsoft specifications on MSDN without requiring companies to sign a trade secrets license in advance is a major breakthrough. Opening up integration with open source is a positive development, but personally I believe much of the innovation in this area will come from commercial vendors in the years to come.

We’ll have a lot more to say on the topic of integration with Microsoft technologies next week at the Microsoft 2008 Launch Wave in Los Angeles. Suffice it to say for now that we’ve been working with Microsoft since 2007 on supporting new technologies they developed for Vista and Windows Server 2008, and the timing of this announcement is validation of what we see as a broader trend. With Napera having grown up in Microsoft’s shadow here in the Pacific Northwest, it is also great to see our neighbors in Redmond take their commitment to interoperability to the next level.