Microsoft “Play Well With Others”? Can a Leopard change its spots?

Get a grip sportsfans. Microsoft plans to unveil a technology industry alliance on Tuesday to make software from competing companies and partners work better together, company executives said. Of course, Msoft's concept of an alliance is Gates' guys striding through the world like kings and everybody else ground down like the dirt beneath their feet

Bob Muglia, the Microsoft SVP who has led the company’s so-called interoperability efforts for the last year, will announce details of the alliance in Barcelona, Spain, at an event for European software developers. The move is Microsoft’s latest effort to move from being a company that insists on the advantages of its own products to one that can adapt when customers use other companies’ goods.

Eleven days ago, for instance, Microsoft struck a deal with Novell, a longtime rival, to ensure that Novell’s version of the Linux operating system operates with Windows in corporate data centers. Analysts saw the partnership as a concession by Microsoft that open-source software like Linux was a rival it could not defeat. Others say Microsoft is trying to take the lead in interoperability so it can manage the relationships, rather than cede management to others.

The new Interop Vendor Alliance, which is being financed by Microsoft and is starting with 22 corporate members, will work publicly and privately to share information to solve common problems faced by customers and test real-world situations.

One example, company officials said, would be the not-so-simple task of letting a company’s employees sign on to multiple programs with a single user name and password, rather than using separate log-ons for each application.

In Europe, interoperability is a bit of a loaded word when it comes to Microsoft. The inability of Microsoft’s crucial operating system, Windows, to work well with its rivals’ products was at the heart of a European Commission antitrust case that resulted in a record fine against the company in 2004.

The commission found that by withholding vital information about Windows, the company deliberately restricted interoperability between personal computers using Windows and computer servers running software from Microsoft’s rivals.

Muglia, in an interview, said the alliance was “much, much broader than what has been mandated by the European Commission.” He continued, “This is about the long term.”

Yeah, yeah sure it is.