14 DAY TRIAL // Back in 2006, Microsoft made a landmark move designed to bridge Windows Server and Linux with an interoperability agreement inked with Novell, a partnership that has evolved and grown in complexity. Although criticized for its intellectual property assurance aspect, the Novell deal signaled a cultural change for Microsoft. However, 2006 marked another critically important move from the Redmond company on the interoperability front, namely the birth of the Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council helmed by Microsoft President Bob Muglia. Three years later, the software giant is ready to unveil the results of the council’s work to the world.
Results that have spawned out of Microsoft’s revelation that it needs to do business in a world where customers are increasingly relying on heterogeneous environments. Carnival Cruise Lines Chief Technology Officer Doug Eney and Professor Radu Popescu-Zeletin the director of the Berlin-based Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems are just two IEC members that applauded the software giant for its support of third-party solutions for customers running mixed source environments.
“It’s my perception that Bob Muglia is trying to pioneer interoperability at Microsoft both inside and outside the company,” Popescu-Zeletin stated. “I think this is having an impact on how others view Microsoft.” While Eney added ““We have staff from over 80 countries on a typical ship. So just like our crewmembers, software itself has to work efficiently in a heterogeneous environment.”
For the first time in the existence of the Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, Microsoft made public the operational details and results achieved, providing an overview of efforts made over the past three years. At the end of January 2010, the Redmond company published “The Interoperability Executive Customer Council: A Collaboration with Microsoft” whitepaper detailing the work and achievements of the council since its debut in 2006.
The whitepaper provides deep insight into the efforts of the IEC Council, with a focus on the work done into six specific areas: Office Productivity and Collaboration Tools, Systems Management, Identity Management, Developer Tools and Runtime, Business Process Modeling and Services Oriented Architecture and Public Interoperability Policy. According to the Redmond company, feedback from the members of IEC Council received during biannual meetings helped identify no about 50 key areas for improved interoperability across not only Microsoft products but also the software industry at large. Microsoft said that over 70% of the issues had already been resolved or were in the process of being dealt with.
“We recognized that it’s a mixed IT world and our customers wanted their technologies to work better together,” Muglia revealed . “Our customers told us that interoperability is a significant obstacle — and that they need better support, both from us and other vendors, to resolve many of these issues. Active engagement and a high degree of trust among Council members and Microsoft executives and senior architects have been a critical factor of the Council’s success.”
Microsoft resolved no less than one-third of the problems signaled by IEC Council’s members by building features into existing Microsoft products. Yet, another third required Microsoft to embrace open source solutions, with the remaining third resolved through offering protocol documentation, standards evolution, and via third-party products.