Business are no longer looking at just a one or two software vendors for their IT departments.  Now companies  are looking at dozens of software providers, some of which will be open source.  These IT Departments want their software to follow standards and contain a level of interaction that allows them to work together.

Whether it’s your LDAP server, web server, database, or mail server, these IT departments are wanting them to play nice together.  Software now must be able to use any LDAP to perform authentication., be able to be fronted by any number of web servers, access a central database using SQL, and have access to SMTP/POP for mail services.  These are standard protocols and interface points that can be used.

Question to ask before you develop the next great piece of software:

• What standards do I need to follow?
• What authentication system would my customer expect me to use?
• What OS platforms would my customers like to be running?
• How well should I support virtual systems?
• What open source components can I use in my development?
• What open source components will my customers likely use?

Today’s IT departments are no longer at the mercy of a single software brand.  Now you will find a mixture of brands working together.  This is what our customers want and how they want the pieces to work together.  No longer will you find a customer taking Brand X’s email server, just because they have Brand X’s LDAP server.  IT departments are now looking for what fits their needs the best.

Is this good? Having come from a background of interoperability testing of H.323 and T.120 protocols, I know how difficult it is to achieve interoperability.  However having interoperability between services, is far more attainable than having interoperability among multiple service providers for the same service.  This I think is a great step toward the goal of software interoperability.