Microsoft Corp. today announced several new actions that deliver upon the commitments set in its Interoperability Principles to increase the openness of its products, drive greater interoperability, and provide increased opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.

Highlights of the actions announced today include: posting Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007; posting nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office binary file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt); and making significant strides in the company’s efforts to foster more open engagement with other members of the IT community.

“Today’s actions represent Microsoft’s continued fulfillment of the commitments it made in its Interoperability Principles,” said Craig Shank, general manager of Interoperability at Microsoft. “Microsoft’s cumulative posting of approximately 50,000 pages of technical documentation on MSDN provides consistent, open access for all developers, which enhances the ease and opportunities for working with Microsoft’s high-volume products. Moreover, our work with partners, competitors and customers to engage in the technical nuts-and-bolts of real-world interoperability provides great ongoing opportunities for collaboration to address the challenges of today’s diverse IT environment.”

Ensuring Open Connections

As part of its commitment to ensure open connections to its products, Microsoft has posted on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216514.aspx) Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Microsoft posted preliminary versions of this protocol documentation in April of this year, solicited input from the community, and factored this input into the Version 1.0 releases posted today.

As a result of the documentation, developers working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to develop products that work with Microsoft Office 2007 client applications. In addition, developers working with Exchange Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to build applications that directly communicate and store information related to e-mail, calendar, contacts, voice mail and task tracking with either Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. This documentation provides comprehensive information about how these Microsoft products interact with other Microsoft products, which will assist developers creating new products and improving existing solutions.

“The protocol documentation has been very straightforward and has really enabled our developers to get up to speed on what they are looking at and implement the solutions in the Unified Access Control products as quickly as possible,” said Rich Campagna, senior product manager, Service Layer Technologies, Juniper Networks Inc.

In addition to posting this documentation, Microsoft also published a list indicating which of the published protocols built into the following products are covered by Microsoft patents or patent applications: Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), and Microsoft Windows Server 2008. In addition, Microsoft published the reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms and low pricing available to those who choose to take a license to the patents covering the protocols in these products that are used to communicate with other Microsoft products.

Sourced From: Genesis Burson-Marsteller