I was doing some brainstorming for a letter I'm going to send for a job I want to apply for that deals with messaging, presumably instant-messaging. That led me to quickly check out Microsoft's Live Communications Server. I found a little tidbit and a speech that's worth sharing. The tidbit is Microsoft's definition of "standards based" while the speech is Bill Gate's vision of real-time collaboration.
Microsoft's definition of standards based for their Communication server means "Server application programming interface (API)" and "Updated client APIs"1.
Oh wow! Microsoft will lock you into a Microsoft API and soothe your fears of lock in by calling it standards compliant. Nice try.
On a better note, Bill Gates can actually be quite a visionary. I also opened his Speech Transcript for Real-time Collaboration.
When we talk about connecting up with people, how are you going to do that? Well, sometimes you'll have these predetermined workspaces, SharePoint workspaces, that have sets of people in them, and then you can look and see their presence, you can decide if you want to notify those people.
Unfortunately he wasn't to visionary about the idea of presence a couple of paragraphs before, and the whole speech makes Bill sound like he's a member of the JSF.
I need to get out of the Linux anti-Microsoft mind set, because Bill really needs to apply for membership into the JSF. Some big names have joined the party: Apple, Sun, and AOL!
Let's hope that the voice of the little guys doesn't get drowned out by the thump of their drums (or their patents).
