Microsoft's plans to open up hidden programming interfaces
in its Office and Windows products, should
make it easier for IT directors to combine open source with Windows
platforms.
The
firm's newly announced interoperability strategy will allow
third-party commercial and open source IT companies to tailor their
own products to work more effectively with Windows software in
heterogeneous IT systems.
At the same time,
Microsoft is making it easier for third-party suppliers to
develop products and services that will support older Microsoft
file formats, a move that will be seen as a significant step
forward for IT departments struggling with legacy data.
It was no coincidence that Microsoft's announcement came just a
week before the
European Commission ordered the firm to pay £680m for failing
to comply with a 2004 order to stop its monopolistic practices.
Microsoft, the Commission ruled, had previously failed to provide
vital information to rival software makers.
Microsoft's latest plan is far reaching. It aims to promote data
portability, support industry standards and foster more open
engagement with customers and the industry, including open source
communities. IT directors running mixed Windows, Linux and Unix
environments should benefit directly from this new level of
openness.
Chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, said "Our goal is to
promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for
customers and developers throughout the industry by making our
products more open and by sharing even more information about our
technologies."
Gartner said that, overall, the strategy represented an
important change in Microsoft's willingness to encourage
interoperability. "We do not expect this new attitude will pervade
the whole company, but we do think that attitudes are changing as
new executives replace the old guard. But many members of the
open-source community remain cynical, and the European Commission
is seeking substantiation by action."
Many open-source software packages already run on Windows, but
Gartner predicts that Microsoft's interoperability strategy will
entice many open source developers to write applications for
Windows in addition to Linux. This, the analyst firm says, should
give IT departments a wider range of software to chose from. "More
look-alike products to Excel, Word, Office and PowerPoint could
emerge," it said.
Laurent Lachal, senior analyst at Ovum, said Microsoft's
interoperability strategy not only represents a step forward for
its approach to open source software, "It also means Microsoft is
talking about open source software at the highest level of the
company."
But although Microsoft has made strides to improve the way it
now works with the open source community, Lachal said that
businesses running open source software still risk infringing
Microsoft's intellectual property, if their suppliers have not
reached licensing agreements with Redmond.
"From an IP point of view, though, the company has not budged a
bit. This announcement will make it easier for Microsoft to apply
pressure on those open source software providers, such as Red Hat,
who (unlike Novell, for example) have yet to sign a patent
licensing agreement [with Microsoft]."
Tarzey said that Microsoft is now facing increasing commercial
pressure from Google and the open source community, who are able to
offer or free low cost alternatives. By opening up its internal
programming interfaces, he said Microsoft would be able to use
third-party developers to help to improve its software.
Microsoft products supporting the new initiative include Windows
Vista (including the .Net Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL
Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office
SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these
products.
Users welcome Microsoft's support for legacy document
formats
Microsoft has responded to user-concerns over the
incompatibility of outdated document formats. The software giant
said it would extend Office 2007 to provide greater flexibility of
document formats.
It plans to introduce new application programming interfaces for
the Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office 2007 to
enable developers to plug in additional document formats. Users
will be able to set these formats as their default for saving
documents.
The move will make it easier for organistions to store and
retrieve historical documents, said Bob Tarzey, service director at
Quocirca. "Archiving is a huge problem. The amount of information
is growing that only exists in a digital form, so when people want
to read an electronic copy of the Magna Carta in 1000 years time
there will be a problem unless the industry uses open
standards."
Ray Titcombe, chairman of the Strategic Supplier Relationship
Group, said, "This is very encouraging action from Microsoft,
recognising the issues over future 'legacy' document
retention/retrieval and the need for an 'openness' approach."