Is the Vendor Lock-In Argument dead?
Microsoft published an interesting announcement last week announcing its Interoperability principles: (http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/default.mspx)
Since that time, the usual suspects have said the usual things: Microsoft's staunchest defenders immediately proclaimed this the greatest thing since sliced bread. Microsoft's fiercest competitors proclaimed it just so much smoke and mirrors.
I read the release a couple times, and some comments from friends. My view is that it is somewhere between those two extremes. I do think it is quite significant, and I also think it's bigger than many people think.
Here's why: Principle III discusses data portability. This statement is (IMO) key:
"Once customers use one software product to store their data, they should be able to subsequently access that data in a form that permits its use in other software products."
That statement, depending on how all competitors work with it, really means the end of the vendor lock-in argument. The vendor lock in argument goes like this (imagine someone in a big, blue suit talking). "Once you use product mumble from vendor yada yada, you're stuck there until the end of days. Your system upgrades will forever be tied to vendor yada yadas support for new technology. If they upgrade, so must you. If they don't, you're stuck. And, every upgrade will cost you money."
There's always been enough FUD there to choke a horse, but now it's easier to see. In almost every system I've used, the size of the data in use dwarfs the size of the code. More importantly, the cost of moving from System A to System B is almost all the cost of some costly conversion between data formats. The software itself, while not trivial, is nothing compared to the cost of moving, and translating the data (remember that you'll also need to validate the translation).
In this statement of principle(s), Microsoft is making the strongest real commitment any software vendor or group has made to publicizing open formats and providing tools to interoperate with data created by or managed by any of Microsoft's major products. That means you should be able to create tools in any language, on any platform, on any device that will work with data stored in or created by Microsoft products. Want to look at Word documents on an Android phone? It should be possible. Got a specific industry application written in Java? You should be able to extend it to access the data it needs from your Microsoft SharePoint site.
This, to me, means the vendor lock-in argument is dead. If you create software using the Microsoft stack, any other application, on any other platform, should be able to access that data.
Principle I, part 4, is also significant:
"Some of Microsoft's Open Protocols are covered by patents. Microsoft will indicate on its website which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates. To assist developers in clearly understanding whether or not Microsoft patents may apply to any of the protocols, Microsoft will make available a list of the specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol. We will make this list available once for each release of a high-volume product that includes Open Protocols. Microsoft will not assert patents on any Open Protocol unless those patents appear on that list. Third parties do not need licenses to any Microsoft patents to call these Open APIs".
This is significant because many other vendors, even those that spend a lot of marketing time and money talking about how 'open' they are do not allow developers to build competitive solutions around their ecosystem. (See IBM vs. PSI, Adobe vs. Macromedia). Yes, I know Adobe has since purchased Macromedia. But still, many of the largest vendors protect their turf through legal action more than they do through creating better software. It does concern me that companies can create the illusion of being open, yet send in the lawyers when someone competes with them.
I do think Microsoft deserves quite a bit of credit for this announcement. It's a big step that other vendors haven't made. It's also going to be increasingly important as more and more of our important data is stored "in the cloud", in some vendor's application. Can you get your data out of the cloud if you want to move from one vendor to another? Where there are obvious standards, it's possible, even if a little painful. (Try moving from Google calendar to Live Calendar). When more of our lives move online, this will become critical. Can you move your life from MySpace to FaceBook? Or to the next big thing, if that's where you find more value? With open standards for data you can.