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microsoft's gates vows 'interoperable' software By Reed Stevenson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) adopted a new mantra on Thursday, promising to work harder to make its software work better with other software systems and hardware, Chairman Bill Gates said in an e-mail to customers.

Previously, such e-mails signaled the launch of massive new efforts by the world's largest software company. The last major initiative, to improve the security of the company's software, was launched by Gates three years ago, and most messages since then have focused on that issue.

But in Thursday's lengthy e-mail, sent to major corporate customers and made public by Microsoft, the company said it would boost efforts to make its software work more smoothly, or "interoperate" with other existing technologies.

"Over the years, our industry has tried many approaches to come to grips with the heterogeneity of software," Gates said, "But the solution that has proven consistently effective -- and the one that yields the greatest success for developers today -- is a strong commitment to interoperability."

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, and other software makers have in the past encouraged information technology departments to adopt complete packages of software technologies as a way to cut costs and streamline their businesses.

But Gates said tighter IT budgets and efforts to create more compatible software standards were pushing companies to find ways to make existing systems work better together, rather than investing in new software products.

Pressure from customers to create more compatible software helped nudge Microsoft toward a $2 billion settlement with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s (SUNW.O: Quote, Profile, Research) last year. Sun and other major software vendors such as Oracle Corp. (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) have also pushed for software interoperability in recent years.

"Wholesale replacement of existing technologies is a tough sell for most organizations," Gates said. "They simply have too much invested in a variety of systems from any number of vendors."

Microsoft is also facing competition from Linux and other software that can be copied and modified freely. Proponents of such software say its flexible distribution makes it easier to design to work with other software.

Gates argued, however, that open source software encourages the proliferation of different software systems, making it harder to integrate them with other proprietary systems.

Many Microsoft products already work with other non-Microsoft products, and the company will build more interoperability into the design of its products, Gates said.

Microsoft also launched a Web site devoted to interoperability at www.microsoft.com/interop.

"The Internet is perhaps the most obvious example of this kind of interoperability, where any piece of software can connect and exchange data as long as it adheres to the key protocols," Gates said.