Metro, the Web Services stack, is one of the main components in GlassFish. One of its key benefits is excellent WebServices interoperability with the Microsoft stack, leveraging our relationship with MS. A consequence is showings in informal publications from Microsoft, like mszCool's Plans for 2009 and Identity Interoperability as well as in formal Federated Identity and Healthcare in the MS's The Architecture Journal. On a related note, O'Reilly has published Java Web Services: Up and Running - A quick, practical, and thorough introduction where Martin Kalin covers SOAP and RESTful Web Services in Java using Metro and Jersey.

For WebServices discussions, check out our Forum, and the mailing lists USERS@Metro and USERS@Jersey. Although we consider Jersey a piece of Metro - we love SOAP and REST equally :-) and the two parts are intended to mesh together - we are maintaining two mailing lists as the audiences tend to be disjoint.

Microsoft Office will support ODF, MS to join OASIS TC! Check out: • MS Press Release • BetaNews • SD Times • ConsortiumInfo Analysis

You know the saying... "when Pigs Fly..."? Well, Clemen's Latest note starts: A flock of pigs has been doing aerobatics high up over Microsoft Campus in Redmond What he is referring is that he just checked in GlassFish and Metro into the latest Biztalk SDK! Neat! And he has some very nice words for the Metro team, as Arun highlights.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Alexis highlights another Microsofter, Stéphane, on another aspect of the same relationship: GF and NetBeans being available at Microsoft Technology Centers.

I think we may have a new mascot - the flying pig!

The latest stable version of Metro (which ships as part of GlassFish v2) has been extensively tested with Microsoft's WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) version 3.0. The next version of .Net 3.5 is already out and the team is working hard to achieve the best possible interoperability with this new set of WS-* implementations.

Harold and Rama report on the most recent "plugfest" with Microsoft engineers. The work involves moving from some non-standard technologies (such as WS-ReliableMessaging 1.0 which is "just" a specification, not an open standard) to the OASIS version (OASIS WS-RM 1.1, dated July 2007) for better interoperability. The set of test scenarios is comprehensive and results very promising.

Check out Metro's roadmap here for an idea of when to expect stable releases. In the mean time, you can get the nightly builds.

Next Tuesday, July 17th, there will be a Sun Expert Exchange on Sun - Microsoft Interoperability. Topics will cover our own Project Tango but also topics like running Windows on Sun servers, thin clients, and storage. Expert Exchange events are free online sessions with a panel of experts. Sometimes there are also short video Net Talks. Transcriptions and slides of past events are available.

Thanks to Marina for the tip.

One more positive data point on the Vista and Java threads (Charles, Chet, Alexis), but, this time, on the server side: Dinesh reports success in running GlassFish on Vista following the QuickStart Instructions. Check the details at Dinesh's Blog. Yet another positive thread is the whole set of Web Services Interoperability PlugFests between Windows Communication Framework and GlassFish (courtesy of ProjectTango/WSIT). The latest report is here.