Microsoft More Open
Microsoft has been on an openness kick of late for two reasons. One is of a
legal nature; Microsoft's toughest legal foe is the European Union, which has
been suing and fining the company for years. The U.S. government, though far
less active under the Bush administration, is another thorn. And, lastly, Microsoft
competitors have been suing over antitrust.
The other reason is the reality that open source exists and IT likes it.
Regardless of the reason, Microsoft is taking openness seriously. It struck
a deal with Sun, whose former CEO, Scott McNealy, has more bad words for Redmond
than an HBO late-night series. While the Sun deal has been a bit of a dud, the
one that has bore real fruit is the Novell
arrangement, where the companies offer mutual tech support and now have
significant interoperability.
Microsoft is extending this activity to the rest of the open source world through
its Interoperability Principles. The latest news is that Microsoft has formally
released documentation for key protocols used in the latest versions of
Exchange, SharePoint and Office. If you're a real glutton for this kind of stuff,
there are now 50,000 pages worth of protocol specs. Now there's some fun summer
reading.
Do you use Novell and Microsoft? Is the relationship as fruitful as I make
it out to be? Set me straight at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on July 01, 2008