Since the settlement of the outstanding lawsuits between Sun and Microsoft, I've had a few chances to work with the Microsoft folks, both in the UK and elsewhere (including last year's European TechEd). I have to say, all the people I have worked with have been co-operative, motivated and customer focussed.
At the practitioner level, I expect that is probably a widespread experience.
At the corporate level, a group of mutual customers was set up to ensure that, in our collaborative efforts, we jointly focus on those issues that really matter to them. The idea is that all the stakeholders (vendors and users) sit round the same table. I think that's a great principle. It's also a great way of defusing the kind of tension which can persist in these circumstances. In practice, the top item on that group's agenda was 'interoperability'. Understandable; "we all use products from both of you - please work to make them interoperate". And that's what much of our joint work has been about - such as the Liberty - WS-* interoperability demonstrated by Pat (Superpat) Patterson all those months ago.
So it's a little strange to read today that Microsoft has announced an 'interoperability council', with the rationale that "businesses realize that having compatible software systems reduces costs and means better information access". No kidding. It's strange because the Council appears to consist entirely of customers. It's pretty clear that businesses think there's value in interoperability; how many meetings dones one need to work that out? But delivering interoperability is going to require dialogue with,,, well, other vendors.
Come on, guys... open up the forum; past experience shows that it is worth it.
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