13 April 2012, 10:28

Microsoft creates open source offshoot

Microsoft has announced the creation of a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, called Microsoft Open Technologies. Jean Paoli, who is currently General Manager of Interoperability Strategy at Microsoft and is one of the co-creators of the XML standard, will be leading the new company. The new group will comprise fifty to seventy-five employees from Paoli's current team at Microsoft. The goal of the new entity is to provide "a new way of engaging in a more clearly defined manner" with the open source entities that Microsoft is already involved with.

Paoli stressed that the creation of the new company will not change the way that Microsoft itself interacts with entities such as the Apache Software Foundation, the Outercurve Foundation (which Microsoft originally created as the CodePlex Foundation) and open standards bodies. "This structure will make it easier and faster to iterate and release open source software, participate in existing open source efforts, and accept contributions from the community", Paoli said. He also promised that the move would lead to greater interaction by Microsoft with open source communities.

(fab)

« previous | next »

Print Version | Send by email | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-1520424