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WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Monday, December 16

Defining Interoperability [WebTech]

Full marks to Joe Wilcox in seeing through the techno-FUD to the real issues in his insightful piece on Office 11 today on C|Net. The issue with Office 11 is not whether it uses XML or not - who wouldn't - but whether the way the XML is used creates room for true interoperability (and it seems Sean agrees...). Microsoft in this case defines interoperability as "the ability to interoperate with other members of the vendor's product family (possibly including partners)" whereas what I think we're all looking for is initially "the ability for different tools serving the same purpose to losslessly exchange files". The latter is true interoperability today, the former is the benefit we are being sold under the guise of 'web services'. Tomorrow, true interoperability will also include the provision of replaceable net-connected services, but as I have said elsewhere that's not on the agenda for web services yet.

posted at 4:42 PM (UK) | |

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