Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff | InfoWorld | Microsoft opening APIs | February 21, 2008 09:20 AM

MORE ENTRIES

Microsoft opening APIs

February 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft opening APIs

In a dramatic move, Microsoft is opening up documentation for it APIs and communications protocols, the company announced Thursday.

Developers do not need a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information, the company said. Open access is intended to ensure that third-party developers can connect to Microsoft high-volume products just as other Microsoft products do.

Interoperability principles announced by Microsoft apply to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and OfficeSharePoint Server 2007. Future versions of these products also will be covered.

More than 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols previously available only under a trade secret license will be published on MSDN.

Microsoft also will indicate on its Web site which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and license all of these patents under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms at low royalty rates, the company said.

Additionally, Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementation of these protocols. Developers can use the documentation for free to develop products.

Also, Microsoft will design new APIs for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office 2007 to enable developers to plug in additional document formats and enable users to set these formats as their default for saving documents.

Microsoft also is launching an open source interoperability initiative to enable more interoperability between commercial and community-based open source technologies and Microsoft products.

Posted by Paul Krill on February 21, 2008 09:20 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE:

COMMENTS

This is great if they really mean it. It's also the only way Microsoft is going to survive in the long term as anything but a Game Box producer.

Posted by: rich97 at February 21, 2008 10:06 AM

Don't be so naive. Notice MS only did this for their new products. If they want to impress someone give us the descriptions for all the APIs for the last 2 generations of products especially XP. This is just a ploy to get revenue by having you upgrade to their newest products using open APIs as a ploy. Remember MS shows no mercy when it comes to maintaining their monopoly.

RJW

Posted by: Ray Windisch at February 21, 2008 11:56 AM

Notice that MS only did this for the products that they actually thought to separate the "good code" from the stuff that they might have to open up because the market would eventually demand. To assume microsoft has no ability to think ahead is what is naive. Im no fan of MS tactics (primarily a Gentoo user) but to relinquish it to they did it because .. fill in an excuse.. is ridiculous. Lets assume they are up to no good but embrace what they have opened up. in the scope of history . its a HUGE step from the "open source will kill your computer".
JK

Posted by: JK at February 21, 2008 05:55 PM

I think you're right. With the expansive amount of XP applications out there, a step like this is needed to help grow a Vista user/developer base. Honestly, XP is in the past. Like it or not, Microsoft's going to cut support (updates) for it eventually (2011, IIRC), so a gesture like this is definitely a calculated one.

Posted by: steve7791 at February 22, 2008 04:34 AM

Blog Profile for krails

Add to Technorati Favorites

Technology White Papers

InfoWorld Technology Marketplace

» Technology White Papers Library

Technology White Papers by Topic

Technology White Papers E-mail Alert