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Microsoft focuses on 'pragmatic interoperability'


By David Worthington
June 26, 2009 — 
Microsoft receives feedback through many channels, but it chose to place itself in the hot seat in May at a closed-door meeting of its Interoperability Customer Executive Council (ICEC). The feedback that it received helped Microsoft form a more pragmatic approach to interoperability that focused on customer scenarios, two executives said, but critics maintain that Microsoft is not entirely sincere in its efforts.

Discussions at the ICEC event were "robust" and helped Microsoft understand what its customers really need, said Craig Shank, general manager of the interoperability group at Microsoft. As a consequence of that meeting, the company started various work streams, including meetings between its product architects and those customers, he added.

However, the company refused to discuss exactly what specific comments and suggestions were made. The event included 31 partner CIOs, who were "frank" with Microsoft in their comments, Shank said.

The ICEC work will focus on delivering interoperability in cloud computing, development environments, identity, Microsoft products and systems management, said Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability strategy at Microsoft. It will follow a structured approach that Microsoft uses internally.

There are four main areas to Microsoft's structured approach to interoperability: products and standards implementations, collaboration, developer resources, and participation in formal standards bodies, Shank said.

"A standard is a stack of paper until you start coding," he said. "The nature of coding is that you need to know what you are coding against—that's where developer resources come into play."

Microsoft is identifying how it implemented standards, and it is collaborating with the industry to do testing work for its standards implementations, he said.

The company has commissioned a website called Interoperability Bridges and Labs Center to serve as an online resource for developers. Developers can find documentation about Microsoft protocols and standards implementations, as well as information about upcoming Plugfest lab events.

Shank said that enabling interoperability creates opportunities within its partner ecosystems. Apple used Microsoft's documentation to implement Microsoft's ActiveSync Exchange mobile e-mail synchronization technology for the iPhone. In addition, NotifySync, a communications software maker that brought ActiveSync to BlackBerry devices, used Microsoft documentation, he said. "The documentation is robust; sunshine is useful."

When asked whether some documentation was too complex to be useful to developers, Shank said that Microsoft has taken steps like rewriting its Office Binary Protocol file documentation, and that there is a "high degree" of support activity through MSDN.

Collaboration is also crucial, Shank said. "There is a certain amount of beer and pizza and coffee that is required to go into our interoperability effort. There are multi-day Plugfests where real engineering work in the lab has to happen."

Microsoft has focused on specific testing, including Plugfest testing between SAMBA and Windows Server for file and print interoperability.

"The customer expectation is that things work together," Paoli said. "The reality is that interoperability is difficult. People expect it to work just like magic."

He noted that Microsoft has held 11 document interoperability events worldwide over the past 18 months, and that it has produced an open-source Internet Explorer plug-in for browsing document formats.

However, those efforts have not been enough to silence one of the company's major critics. This month, Rob Weir, Chief ODF Architect at IBM, wrote in his blog that Microsoft was engaged in a whisper campaign against ODF in an effort to promote the Open XML format that it created. Microsoft did not respond specifically to his remarks.

Document standards are not the only place where supporting standards can fall into a gray area. In an April interview with SD Times, Tim Hall, director of SOA products at Hewlett-Packard, suggested that software makers, including Microsoft, might tack on proprietary functionality to cloud standards, citing SQL language implementations as a past example of that behavior.

When questioned, Paoli brushed off suggestions that Microsoft could add its own "secret sauce" to standards, particularly in cloud computing.

"Thirteen years ago, we had the same discussion on XML. People were saying, 'Microsoft is going to add secret sauce to the XML parser,' but the only thing I can tell you is to judge us with what we do."

He provided several examples of Microsoft's recent interoperability work as proof of its intentions: implementing XML in the .NET Framework; making Windows Azure services Web addressable; Java and Ruby SDKs for Azure .NET Services; sponsoring an Eclipse IDE for Azure; Internet Explorer 8 having broad standards support; Office Open XML; OpenDocument Format (ODF) support in Office 2007 Service Pack 2; and the company's participation in the Stonehenge Web standards project.

Paoli also highlighted Microsoft's work with Novell, including Microsoft Operations Manger 2007 Cross Platform Extensions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server; sponsoring an open-source Eclipse plug-in for Silverlight development; and nurturing the Mono Silverlight plug-in for Linux.

Microsoft's motivation for working on these projects is twofold: It wants to be more customer friendly, and it needs to compete in new markets, said Laura DiDio, founder of Information Technology Intelligence Corp., a Boston-based consultancy and research firm.

Microsoft has been "steadily trying to learn from its mistakes" and is trying to "turn the lemons into lemonade" with better licensing, security and interoperability, she said. The company is also entering into new markets that have higher profit margins to spur its growth—beyond its operating system and Office businesses, she added.

"A lot of companies that move outside of their comfort zone are met with skepticism. [Microsoft] has done a credible job with [Windows] Azure, but is still confronted with people skeptical of its ability to make its mark and compete in new markets."


Related Search Term(s): interoperability, Microsoft


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