Microsoft Opens Vista, Office Applications

The software giant will provide free documentation and software code that can be used to create applications for Windows and Office.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the international company will begin publishing some 30,000 documents online which will be offered to developers at no cost.

The software company will also publish APIs (Application Program Interfaces) for its major products which include: Exchange Server 2008, Office 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, the .NET Framework, Server 2008 and Microsoft Windows Vista.

Microsoft also vows to free up both client and server protocols for third parties to connect to the company's online products. In addition, it has promised not to sue creators of open source, non-commercial versions of those protocols.

"For the past 33 years, we have shared a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners around the world and helped build the industry, but today s announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency. Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies," said CEO Steve Ballmer.

The official announcement covers 4 points: 1) ensuring open connections; 2) promoting data portability; 3) enhancing support for industry standards; and 4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.