Red Hat Skeptical of Microsoft's Openness Promise (NewsFactor)

In a move to appease European antitrust officials, Microsoft on Thursday promised to open its products. It said its four-pronged approach would ensure open connections, promote data portability, enhance support for industry standards, and improve engagement with customers and the industry, including open-source communities.

Its that last item, open-source communities, that has the tech world talking, but its not all pro-Microsoft. Open-source heavy hitters like Linux vendor Red Hat are viewing the announcement with skepticism.

RED HATS RESPONSE

According to Michael Cunningham, executive vice president and general counsel for Red Hat, three Microsoft commitments would show the company really means what it says: a commitment to open standards, interoperability with open source, and competition on a level playing field.

"Eight years ago the U.S. regulatory authorities, and four years ago the European regulators, made clear to Microsoft that its refusal to disclose interface information for its monopoly software products violates the law," Cunningham said. "So it is hardly surprising to see even Microsoft state that interoperability across systems is an important requirement and announce a change in [its] approach to interoperability. Of course, weve heard similar announcements before, almost always strategically timed for other effect."

Red Hat wants Microsoft to embrace the cross-platform industry standard for document processing, OpenDocument format, at the International Standards Organizations meeting next week in Geneva. The Linux giant also wants Microsoft to extend its Open Specification Promise to all the interoperability information it says will be made available. Red Hat also noted that Microsofts announcement appears carefully crafted to foreclose competition from the open-source community.

"How else can you explain a promise not to sue open-source developers as long as they develop and distribute only noncommercial implementations of interoperable products? This is simply disingenuous," he charged. "The only hope for reintroducing competition to the monopoly markets Microsoft now controls -- Windows, Office, etc. -- is through commercial distributions of competitive open-source software products."

MICROSOFTS COMPROMISE

Microsoft did not go nearly that far with its Thursday announcement. The interoperability principles and actions the company announced apply to Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of these products.

"Customers need all their vendors, including and especially Microsoft, to deliver software and services that are flexible enough such that any developer can use their open interfaces and data to effectively integrate applications or to compose entirely new solutions," said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. "By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers."

Microsofts moves this week do not reflect a radical strategy shift, according to analysts. Microsoft has taken steps in the past to breed greater interoperability and to work closer with outside communities. However, Brad Shimmin, an open-source enterprise analyst with Current Analysis, said this announcement could open the door to greater cooperation with the open-source community.

"Opening products like SharePoint is good because those are the grassroots viral applications that Microsoft has sort of stumbled into over the past couple of years. Microsoft benefits from an active third-party ISV community," Shimmin said. "The best way to enliven that community is to allow them access to the code for their application. They are seeing that with SharePoint. I wouldnt be surprised to see some synergies between Red Hat and Microsoft in the future."