The software developer's participation in AMQP is the latest sign that Redmond is opening up.

Paul McDougall, Editor At Large, InformationWeek

October 24, 2008

2 Min Read

Microsoft said Friday that it has joined a group that's developing a standard for open source messaging software known as the Advanced Messaging and Queuing Protocol (AMQP).

"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," said Sam Ramji, Microsoft's senior director for platform development, in a statement.

InformationWeek originally reported the move last month. At the time, Microsoft and AMQP officials denied that such an agreement was in the works.

AMQP is developing an open source messaging specification. Messaging platforms, such as Microsoft's BizTalk server, facilitate data interchange between business systems and common applications like e-mail.

Existing members of AMQP include Cisco, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Novell, Rabbit Technologies, and Red Hat. "We welcome Microsoft's commitment as another step toward AMQP becoming the preferred connectivity for business messaging on the Internet," said Adrian Kunzle, head of engineering and architecture at JPMorgan.

The news is the latest sign that Microsoft is taking a more open, standards-based approach to software development.

In September, the company announced its participation in the Object Management Group standards body, which publishes standards, such as the Unified Modeling Language, used in the development of model-driven architectures. MDA is a loosely defined term that generally describes environments in which programmers take a systemic view of enterprise software development instead of focusing solely on individual lines of code.

A number of Fortune 500 companies, including Wells Fargo, are experimenting with MDAs in order to create closely integrated business systems.

Also last month, Microsoft said that that it had teamed with IBM and EMC to create standard specifications for a Web services interface to connect content management systems. Microsoft said that, along with its partners, it planned to submit the Content Management Interoperability Services specification to the Oasis group (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for ratification as an industry standard.

About the Author(s)

Paul McDougall

Editor At Large, InformationWeek

Paul McDougall is a former editor for InformationWeek.

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