Focus on Technical Interoperability

Interoperability is now a critical issue within the software industry when considering the long-term future of systems, and for schools and institutions choosing which systems to install.

The debates around whether to use open source or proprietry software and systems have raged for years, traditionally fuelled by concerns about cost. More recently, commercial companies have begun to focus on the development of software that conforms to open standards, ensuring interoperability with other software and systems as a guarantee of sustainability.

The recent release of Microsoft’s ‘Vista’ is likely to bring these issues into focus with a number of features in this operating system that do not conform to open standards specifications.