Interoperability an enterprise reality, claims Microsoft

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IT companies must work together to develop interoperable systems in the face of convergence and security burdens, according to innovation leaders at Microsoft.

Speaking at a press conference at the company's US campus in Redmond, representatives said that enterprise needs IT firms to collaborate to ensure interoperability trends convergence, heterogeneous IT systems, virtualisation, public sector projects and security needs have all made interoperability and collaboration necessary to survive.

"It wasn't that long ago that 'interoperability' and 'heterogeneous' were words you'd never hear from someone at Microsoft," said group product manager Margaret Dawson. "It's the reality for enterprise now."

The need for interoperability has pushed Microsoft to partner with companies they also compete with - something Dawson termed "co-opatition".

Recently, the software giant announced it was working with competitor OpenOffice, to develop tools to increase interoperability between the two document formats.

The increasing convergence of software, hardware and telecommunication systems means applications, devices and processes must be compatible. "You can't have that [convergence] unless different companies work together," said Tom Robertson, the general manager for standards at Microsoft.

In addition, enterprises are shifting to heterogeneous IT systems, where they pick and mix solutions from a variety of vendors to find the right price or tool for their own specific needs. In turn, vendors need to ensure their products work with their partners and competitors alike, or risk being frozen out of enterprise contracts.

Virtualisation, another top IT trend, will also bring challenges. As programs from different vendors are being used on the same hardware, companies must ensure interoperability, Robertson said.

Governments and the public sector bring another twist to interoperability, as IT systems increasingly feature in policy. For example, Robertson said that as healthcare records in Europe are digitised, they must be accessible in any country, regardless of the operation system or application being used. IT solutions will need to be able to translate and read data from competing systems.

Speaking about improvements to security in Microsoft products, principle security program manager Michael Howard said that tightening controls and defences in operating systems will have repercussions for externally developed applications.

"All these defences we have in place are going to affect other applications, so we need to work together," Howard said.

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