In today's unpredictable economy, globalization is driving unprecedented communication and collaboration across businesses, governments and the people they serve. In this environment, the complex task of getting people, systems and IT to work smoothly together is increasingly critical. The organizations that do this well, and the IT companies that help them do so, will excel.

What is Interoperability?

Different vendors, standards, and approaches coexist; different organizations have very different requirements and objectives; and IT professionals need to outfit themselves with the best tools for the job, without sacrificing flexibility or costs. Mixed technology environments can be very difficult to manage, and expensive to maintain. These different technologies don't always "talk to one another," and, as a result, organizations face numerous technical, legal and business challenges. Interoperability connects people, data, and diverse systems so that data is more available to those who need it, and processes flow more smoothly, with fewer burdens on the organization.

What Interoperability means for Government

When you have interoperability, you have the choice and flexibility to use new or existing combinations of hardware, software and services that are best for the job. You also have the cost efficiencies that come with integrating information and processes, and with making and keeping data more available to people, when and where they need it. Interoperability enables governments to better use their existing investments, lessen the resource burden on IT, and ensure people will be able to get full returns on new investments going forward - even as things change.

How Microsoft is Committed to Interoperability

Microsoft has a long history of working well with other companies' products, and has an ongoing commitment to improving interoperability. In order to build on this commitment, Microsoft is changing to be more open: more open in engineering and intellectual property, and more open in relationships with customers, and with industry, standards, and policy bodies. This is helping increase competition and choice, and it is driving advances in real-world interoperability across Microsoft, open source, and various other IT environments. Of course these changes are good for Microsoft, but only because they are good for customers and developers. As a result, people can take better advantage of the strengths of Microsoft-based technologies within complex IT environments that involve many vendors and standards, while gaining even more flexibility to use the best tools for any job.

Microsoft has a long history of working with other companies' products and partnering with competitors to make sure that different companies' technology "just works" together.

To view other Microsoft resources on Interoperability, please see:

Microsoft's Interoperability site

Microsoft's Interoperability principles 

Port 25 - home to the open source community at Microsoft

Channel 9 - A Microsoft community promoting conversation between users and Microsoft developers

Interop Vendor Alliance - an industry-wide group working to identify and share opportunities to better connect people, data and diverse systems through better interoperability with Microsoft systems. 

Interoperability at Microsoft - covering interoperability scenarios, the technologies enabling them and the community at large.

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