Play Nicely Now
I Love our generation. I Love the technology we work with, and I especially Love the Internet.
One of the things I love is enabling people, connecting people. The implications of that over my career, has been to work with a heap of technologies: JCL, COBOL, Novell, WordPerfect, Windows for Workgroups, WiFi, Notes, Exchange, dBaseIII & Clipper, Windows NT thru 2003 (& of course now 2008) just to mention a very few...
Yesterday we had a session on interoperability, and it really resonated with me. With the myriad of technologies I've worked with, and the environments I know our clients work in.
The truth is, apart from the company I now work for, very, very few organisations have a truly homogenous environment. Most, if not all, have different technologies throughout their architecture, some even have "competing" technologies within the same domain (e.g. at Nokia we had Solaris & Windows on engineers desktops)
In this environment Microsoft has a bunch of great technologies in virtually every domain, and hence we do a lot of work to ensure that we reduce the burden of interoperability.
It is important to realise that we're deliberate in our efforts to add value in the ICT industry, and the four areas where we look to interoperate:
1. Boundaries
a) Protocols - working to "talk the language" of the hw, sw, and nw technology. From TCP/IP to kerberos to robotics protocols
b) Data Formats - of course the current hot topic is OpenXML, but we work with data formats throughout the gamut of the software industry
c) Application Programming Interfaces - ensuring that applications developed on platforms other than our own have the hooks to transfer data. Also that developers can add value and extend our technologies.
2. Enablers
a) Documentation - You only have to head over to www.msdn.com, www.technet.com, or http://support.microsoft.com to get a sense of the reams of documentation available to understand and interoperate with Microsoft technology.
b) Software Development Kits - from Robotics studio to Windows Mobile, we provide not only the API's, but also the SDK's to enable people to develop bridges into our technology.
c) Samples - Another way to enable interoperability is to provide sample code to "bootstrap" development. Not only sample code of course, but sample databases, directory formats and others....
3. Business Relationships
a) Partners - Considers developing a product like Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008, and then think about the 500 000(!!) OEM's, ISV's and partners whom provide hw, drivers, and applications for OS's of this nature. Clearly we need to work in the business domain to enable all of this technology to work, to honour IP rights, and innovate new technologies.
b) Joint Development - from working with OEM's and Operators on the Windows Mobile platform, to working with organisations like Novell and Apple over many years to develop technology that works together.
c) Cross-licensing - Again, here is an area where we allow other vendors to integrate our technology into theirs, and theirs into ours
4. The Community at Large
a) Industry Roundtables - from the IETF to ISO, Governments to Finance, we constantly participate in discussions with industry to we work with new standards, protocols and developments
b) Open Source Development Projects - initiatives like dotNETNuke and the newly awarded Open Source Initiative Licences awarded to Microsoft are testament to how we work with OSS.
c) Feedback - some 5 million users gave feedback during the development of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Even now that Windows Server 2008 has RTM'd, we're receiving and responding to the feedback we get from partners, governments, and our customers.
So, you can understand why I enjoyed this session so much. Craig Kitterman did a great job of showing that we're one of the players in all areas of this great technology age. A major player perhaps, but one of many, and we're working deliberately to enable and empower professionals and users in working with all areas of technology.
I do Love our generation. A time where Amanzi and Charis, my 11 and 9 year old daughters, can talk to me in Seattle, from Sydney, from a Three Skype Phone, over a 3G mobile network, the Internet, to Skype, on my Windows Vista laptop - for free. Talk about playing nicely...
R42
