The European Commission gave a guarded welcome to Microsoft's pledge on Thursday for "greater transparency" in its development and business practices.

Microsoft made major concessions Thursday that should make it easier for open-source software to dovetail with or even replace Microsoft products, but a major caveat means the company's legal threats remain alive and well.

Once the traditional anti-open source poster child, Microsoft is slowly seeing this aura eroding replaced as a direct consequence of the rise of new, more pressing, rivals such as Google and Apple.

Open source fans are buzzing about Microsoft’s latest move to open its APIs, which follows along the path it has been on recently. Microsoft’s announced intention to open APIs to its Vista, .Net, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange and Sharepoint software is no-doubt big, but it also comes as more and more traditional software and even hardware vendors tailor their strategies to address the pervasiveness of open source software in the enterprise.

Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products: (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.

On February 21 of 2008, just two months ago, Microsoft announced “strategic changes in technology and business practices to expand interoperability.” These changes, which would be incorporated into a set of “Interoperability Principles” that would provide API and protocol documentation for connectivity to and from their “high-volume business products” naming specifically Windows Vista,

Is Canonical serious about pushing Ubuntu into businesses? The company’s latest corporate move provides a clear answer. Indeed, Canonical has hired Matt Asay — one of the open source industry’s best-known names — as its new chief operating officer. The move comes amid a CEO shift and several major product initiatives at Canonical. Here are some perspectives.

While open source business applications are gaining popularity, proprietary products are not yet being elbowed out the sales door. The reason, William Hurley, BMC Software's chief architect of open source strategy, believes is that many business people are more concerned with getting the job done than with who makes the tool.

One common misconception about open source software is that it can be changed by anyone and is less secure; however, most open source is strictly governed. For example, the Apache Software Foundation has tight configuration management controls for developers. Its products are so good that most major software vendors include some Apache software in their products including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Sun.