Extending the Bridge Between Commercial Open Source and Microsoft Software

Microsoft and Linux platform provider Xandros announced a broad collaboration agreement based on a set of technical, business, marketing, and intellectual property commitments. These commitments provide customers with enhanced interoperability, more effective systems management solutions and intellectual property assurances, all of which extend a bridge between open source and commercial software and deliver customers real value in mixed systems environments. For Xandros, the agreement marks a major milestone in its vision of delivering end-to-end Linux desktop and server solutions as well as with Windows-Linux cross-platform management and interoperability tools.

Over the next five years, Microsoft and Xandros will focus on five primary efforts:

Systems Management Interoperability

Xandros and Microsoft believe advances in system management technology can significantly reduce the cost of operating large computer networks running diverse platforms. Xandros will partner with Microsoft to deliver value-added heterogeneous management capabilities that will work with the next generation of Microsoft Systems Center and Xandros Systems Management products which provide end-to-end service management. Xandros will also join Microsoft and other management vendors in implementing the WS-Management set of protocols in Xandros BridgeWays cross-platform management products and in various systems management standardization efforts.

Server Interoperability

Xandros will license a broad set of Microsoft server communications protocols. Xandros will develop enhancements to Xandros Server allowing it to interoperate more smoothly with Windows Server in a network setting.

Office Document Compatibility

Xandros and Microsoft share the view that competing office productivity applications should, by design, make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another. To that end, Xandros will join Microsoft and other companies who are building open source translators fostering interoperability between documents stored in OpenXML and Open Document Format. Xandros will ship the translators in upcoming releases of its Xandros Desktop offering.

Intellectual Property Assurance

Through the agreement, Microsoft will make available patent covenants for Xandros customers. These covenants will provide customers confidence that the Xandros technologies they use and deploy in their environments are compliant with Microsoft’s intellectual property. By putting a framework in place to share intellectual property Xandros and Microsoft can speed the development of interoperable solutions.