Open season
Microsoft is keen to be a force to be reckoned with in the emerging field of Unified Communications UC). It has joined an instant messaging working group that is not only open source but counts among its members Microsoft's principal rival in the UC market - Cisco.
The AMQP (advanced message queuing protocol) Working Group is an open internet protocol for business messaging. Its aim is to develop a protocol for businesses to be able to message securely and connect messaging dependent applications. The specifications are published on the website, royalty-free.
Apparently Microsoft was requested to join by the incumbent members, including Cisco and a number of technology and financial services firms.
"Cisco has long been a proponent of open industry standards that benefit our customers," said Pranta Das, technical leader for Cisco Systems Inc. and member of the AMQP Working Group. "We are pleased to welcome Microsoft to the AMQP Working Group as we continue to develop open specifications for messaging."
"Customers are seeking scalable solutions with lower costs that will allow messaging within the enterprise and outside the corporate infrastructure," said Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft. "By joining the AMQP Working Group, Microsoft is aiming to contribute to the development of the specification in ways that will best promote interoperability for existing market implementations and provide customers with increased choice."
The brownie points for being nice and open-source won't do Microsoft any harm either.
