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InterKnowlogy, a consulting firm and Microsoft partner. "Microsoft's vision is to unify the messaging bus and the average programmer doesn't have to worry about it--either inside or outside the firewall."
Other software companies building Windows applications will tap into the transport mechanism that Indigo provides as well, he added.
Call in the plumbers
Indigo represents a stepped-up attempt to compete against Java server software providers by supplying the industrial-strength infrastructure software.
In a recent mailing to its corporate customers, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates reiterated the company's commitment to working well with different systems and touted the idea of "interoperability by design" using Web services protocols.
Rather than having Windows operate as a standalone fortress, common Web services communication protocols allow Microsoft .Net applications to share information without extensive and costly custom coding.
"This new model for how software talks to other software has been embraced across the industry," Gates wrote in his letter.
Once a backwater in software, integration technology is now in the sights of the industry's largest companies. Integration software is typically widely deployed in corporations and can lead to follow-on sales of software and services for vendors.
Like Microsoft, IBM, which dominated earlier generations of integration software, is beefing up its investment. Meanwhile, SAP, which made its fortune selling packaged applications, has boasted that its NetWeaver integration product is its most strategic product, years ahead of rivals Oracle/Peoplesoft.
Corporate customers use these so-called middleware packages to share data automatically between systems, such as a sales application and an accounting package. With better-linked systems, businesses can speed up how they operate and get more useful data from the systems they already have.
That's an important thing in many companies. A recent Merrill Lynch survey of CIOs found that software will garner the most spending this year and integration is consistently a top priority.
Microsoft already has an integration product, called BizTalk, which moves data between different systems. The company said Indigo does not replace BizTalk: Indigo provides some of the underlying data-transport services while BizTalk will provide additional services, such as translating between different document formats during a transaction.
A shift in message
The arrival of Indigo, which is expected to be released in beta later this year, also marks a technology shift in the industry toward XML document formats and the use of Web services for applications that demand high levels of security and reliability.
For customers, the move to a common transportation lane for company
See more CNET content tagged:
Indigo Software, Microsoft Indigo, Web service, server, IBM Corp.
Bringing Cyber-COMM technologies down to each individual Windows desktop node now is great timing, and is a welcomed new capability for folks who are involved in designing and fielding distributing computing-communications systems applications.
Bronco Billy and the Rascals of Redmond have exhibited savvy distributed computing vision on this one.
Indigo offers much promise as regards desktop-to-desktop, end-to-end trans-network ?interoperability by design.?
Our Cyber-COMM Tech Developer Ensemble is anxious to get our hands on the new MS-Indigo Sheet music for application and integration into the Info-Orb Architecture? we use in our mobile contingency Cyber-COMM Systems. Our system design solutions must flexibly adaptable to and ?play well with others.? We hope MS-Indigo helps us ?elegantly? expand the cyber-systems communications capabilities of our Distributed Information Sensing, Detection & Fusion Nodal-Network applications.
The Cyber-Beat goes on?Tech-Biz Team, J. Albertz Group
I will not play along with fooling myself that Micro$oft wants to play & compete objectively. That is what "wants to play well" means to me.
You think I actually believe that Micro$oft "wants" to "play well" with others? Where have you been? Perhaps you were not specific enough and thus did not catch yourself on that one. They do not want to- they have to, and they veneer it with the appearance of wanting. Try not to help them out by playing along with it.
Truthfully you should have written "Microsoft has to play well with others. To do that, it's recoating THEIR future in Indigo."
Or you could have played it safe and written, "To play well with others, Microsoft is recoating their future with Indigo."
- 20 bucks......
- by mariusthull February 19, 2005 6:01 PM PST
- 20 bucks says while not being 100 percent standards compliant, Microsoft has added advanced features to their product that run only on MS server products and other MS software.
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