PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff called it Microsoft’s Secret Sauce when I talked with him today. He was referring to certain parts of the Windows Application Programming Interface which Microsoft had always kept secret from other application developers, so that their products would not work as well on Windows machines as software products designed by Microsoft. Today Microsoft published those protocols and promised to make still more public in the months ahead.
Is this the start of a new era of cooperation between Microsoft and the rest of the software industry ? As the cliché goes, only time will tell.
As for the European Commission, I doubt if this will satisfy Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who has made it clear that she believe Microsoft’s market share is simply too large and must be reduced. There’s no answer for that.
