Microsoft extends Windows 7 and Azure to open-source developers

By Paul Krill
October 28, 2009 04:07 AM ET

InfoWorld - Microsoft will unveil on Wednesday several open-source initiatives to boost interoperability between Microsoft technologies, such as Windows 7, Windows Azure, and Silverlight, and open-source technologies, including the Eclipse tools platform and Java.

Although the company has at times been viewed as the commercial opposite of the open-source movement, Microsoft's latest gestures to the open-source community show that it is willing to make moves that can assist open-source devotees in building products that rely on Microsoft's products. Microsoft is working with Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec in projects and technologies being unveiled Tuesday.

[ Last week, Microsoft released a second beta version of its Visual Studio 2010 software development platform. | Get InfoWorld's 21-page hands-on look at the new version of Windows, from InfoWorld’s editors and contributors. ]

"This is part of our ongoing efforts to make our products more open," said Vijay Rajagopalan, principal architect for the Microsoft interoperability strategy team.

In partnership with Eclipse solutions provider Tasktop, Microsoft is looking to enhance the developer experience of Eclipse on the newly released Windows 7 platform. Support is being extended to run the Eclipse IDE on Windows 7 and also to build Windows 7 applications.

The two companies will develop updates to the Eclipse IDE to incorporate features of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The intention, according to Microsoft, is to ensure that the "improved" productivity and user experience of Windows 7 will be available to developers using the Eclipse IDE and also to desktop applications built on the Eclipse platform.

More at: Microsoft extends Windows 7 and Azure to open-source developers

Posted By: Night Hawk
28 Oct 2009