14,000 pages of MS Office and Exchange Server documentation published

Good news came from Microsoft. The company published on MSDN about 14,000 pages of source codes and technical documentation for internal protocols that are used to transfer data between its key products. For the first time, all programmers had the opportunity to see from the inside how Office 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 work. Moreover, developers can now create much better software for interacting with these previously closed Microsoft systems.

Of course, the software giant didn’t go on such a move not from a good life, but in an attempt to somehow reduce or cancel those giant penalties that the European Commission imposed on the corporation in an antitrust case.

The publication of the documentation will take place in three stages until the end of June. As a result, the documentation on the following internal protocols will be fully laid out in open access:
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• Protocols between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office client applications;
• Protocols between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and other Microsoft server products;
• Protocols between Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook;
• Protocols between client applications of the 2007 Microsoft Office system and other Microsoft server products.

Now only a preliminary version of the documentation has been published, and by the end of June, Microsoft promises to publish the final version, as well as agreements for the use of its developments protected by patents.