Microsoft opens Interop lab in Bangalore

Bangalore

October 12th, 2007

In an effort to address interoperability requirements of enterprise
customers, Microsoft Corporation today announced the opeing of an
Interoperability Lab in India.

The lab, which is co-located at the Microsoft Technical Center in Bangalore,
would enable customers plan and test interoperable solution across
infrastructure, application and management layers. This announcement was made at
the Microsoft Interoperability Conclave held here today.

In addition to the interop lab, the company also made another significant
announcement in an area that it has largely ignored-Open Source.

To encourage research and development of open source applications on the
Windows platform, the company signed MoUs under its the Open Source Technology
program with academic institutions including IT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, IIIT
Hyderabad and IIIT Bangalore .

Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, Microsoft, said that
interoperability is becoming a necessity in today's heterogeneous IT environment
that involves multiple vendors. "Just like all human population in India
cannot be expected to talk in one language, all IT environments cannot have just
one vendor."

"Interoperability is as critical a challenge as security and reliability
to the health of an organization's IT environment. With open dialogue and on
ground work with the industry and academia, we hope to collectively address this
emerging area," said Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India.

Interoperability issues are also posing challenges to implementation of
e-governance programs in the country. R Chandrashekhar, additional secretary
(e-governance), DIT, said, " Localization and multi-language support, lack
of technical skills in the government and multiple vendor infrastructure are
some of the issues," he said.