SINGAPORE, 14 APRIL 2009—Information technology giant Microsoft has pledged to embrace interoperability and to continue to work closely with the open-source community.
Microsoft Singapore told MIS Asia that the firm is now building software with interoperability built in ‘from the ground up’ and is also closely engaged with vendors, standards bodies and the open source community to ensure program compatibility.
The software colossus said that Microsoft significantly shifted its thinking about 18 months ago and believed that globalisation has influenced the IT industry, which has now moved towards new levels of collaboration, transparency and openness. The growth of ICT products and services has created complex challenges in areas such as security, privacy, reliability, data management and interoperability.
Bill Gates’ massive software brainchild will hold an ‘Interoperability Day’ in Singapore on Tuesday, 28 April 2009, in a seminar bringing together Microsoft technologists and representatives of the open-source community.
Guests at the event will include Singapore PHP User Group Owner, Michael Cheng, and Interoperability User Group Owner, Mike Veltman.
Open standards
Microsoft’s national technology officer-Singapore, Chew Tat Leong, who will present at the event, said the Singapore ‘Interoperability’ seminar entitled ‘Progress of Interoperability in Society and Businesses’ would examine scenarios, such as interoperability with China’s de facto standard, the unified office format (UOF), or with OpenOffice’s open document format (ODF) and interoperability with open-source software.
The event would also examine the enabling of easier access to books for the visually-impaired via the digital accessible information system (DAISY).
“We are serious about interoperability and Microsoft products are being designed from the ground up to be interoperable,” said Chew. “There is no single approach to interoperability that will work for all situations and no single company can solve any of these challenges on its own. Microsoft is committed to work with businesses and industry partners to address interoperability issues.”
