Microsoft Posts 14,000 Pages of Office, SharePoint, and Exchange Protocols

Published: April 9, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft yesterday announced it has posted 14,000 pages of technical documentation describing how to use the protocols for its Office, SharePoint, and Exchange products. The company says the move brings the total number of pages of technical documentation it has posted to 44,000, and takes another step toward fulfilling the commitment to openness it made in February.

With this move, anybody with an MSDN account can freely access the "preliminary versions" of 14,000 pages of technical documentation for the protocols Microsoft used with Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Exchange Server 2007. Following a review of the preliminary versions, Microsoft expects to release the final versions of the technical documentation by June, at which point it will have decided upon a suitable way to license the information.

The new documentation released yesterday describes the use of protocols for "connection points" between several products, including: Outlook and Exchange Server 2007; Office client applications and SharePoint Server 2007; SharePoint Server 2007 and other Microsoft server products; and Office client applications and other Microsoft server products.

The move follows through on the commitment Microsoft made in February to be less secretive and more open with its customers, business partners, competitors, and open source advocates. As part of that announcement, Microsoft also pledged not to sue open-source programmers for developing software that uses the interfaces.

Microsoft made several other pledges in February that it is in the process of fulfilling. One of these includes the creation of the Open Source Interoperability Initiative, which the company said in February would foster openness between Microsoft and the open source community, including organizing and conducting special events. However, there doesn't appear to be much to this initiative yet except this Microsoft Web page.

Other promises made by Microsoft as part of its Four Principles announcement include enhancing data portability through the creation of new import and export functions in its products (such as Office); enhancing support for open formats (such as ODF) in its products; and adding the capability to change the default file format in its Office applications. A Microsoft spokesperson says the company will announce additional documentation and disclosure schedules in the next several months.

In any event, Microsoft is celebrating the release of the 14,000 pages of preliminary versions of technical documentation. "We believe that providing open, consistent access to these protocols will further unleash the creativity of all developers to work on real-world interoperability solutions," said Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft.

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