February 22, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Software giant Microsoft (microsoft.com) announced on Friday it has improved its business practices to support software from other providers, including open-source communities. The company implemented four principles designed to enable its high-volume enterprise software to meet standards and better handle data from non-Microsoft software.
The company says it will publish the documentation for the application programming interfaces and communications protocols in its “high-volume products”, where developers will not have to purchase a license or pay a royalty to access the information. It will start by publishing protocols for communicating with Windows Server, which the company had only offered before under a trade secret license. Microsoft says it will also publish protocols for interoperability with Office 2007 in the coming months.
Microsoft says these changes will eventually include Windows Vista, the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. The company also says it will not sue open-source developers that develop non-commercial software based on Microsoft’s protocols.
New application programming interfaces will also be offered to developers so that Office 2007 will work better with document formats. The company did not previously support the Open Document Format standard in Office 2007.
Microsoft announced yesterday it will host a webinar to discuss how Windows Server 2008 software can be used to build dedicated servers and appliances.
