Microsoft joins working group for open standards messaging software

Microsoft Corp is joining the advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP) working group, an organisation focused on the development of the AMQP specification.

Microsoft says it is joining the AMQP working group at the request of its members, including several of Microsoft's customers in the financial services industry, in order to support the development of an open industry standard for ubiquitous messaging.

AMQP is a specification for platform-neutral, open standards-based business messaging. The primary goal of AMQP is to enable the communications necessary for business processes. AMQP Working Group members are collaborating on specifications for messaging infrastructure that provide businesses with a simple and more powerful way of connecting messaging-dependent applications both within and between firms. By joining the AMQP Working Group, Microsoft is seeking to contribute toward the development of such solutions and to enable greater customer choice in the marketplace.

''Customers are seeking scalable solutions with lower costs that will allow messaging within the enterprise and outside the corporate infrastructure,'' said Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft. ''By joining the AMQP Working Group, Microsoft is aiming to contribute to the development of the specification in ways that will best promote interoperability for existing market implementations and provide customers with increased choice.''

Message-based transports with security and transactional integrity are a vital infrastructure component throughout institutions. As Microsoft continues to provide vertical industry solutions, AMQP will provide an alternative to current messaging options. The AMQP specification and related implementations may provide greater interoperability for a number of vertical scenarios in addition to financial services, insurance and healthcare, among others.

AMQP Working Group members embraced the news of Microsoft's decision to join.

''The AMQP Working Group is doing great work to facilitate open and interoperable standards for messaging infrastructure across platforms,'' said Adrian Kunzle, head of Engineering and Architecture at J.P. Morgan. ''We welcome Microsoft's commitment as another step toward AMQP becoming the preferred connectivity for business messaging on the Internet.''

''Cisco has long been a proponent of open industry standards that benefit our customers,'' said Pranta Das, technical leader for Cisco Systems Inc. and member of the AMQP Working Group. ''We are pleased to welcome Microsoft to the AMQP Working Group as we continue to develop open specifications for messaging.''

Paul Fremantle, chief technology officer of WSO2 Inc., another working group participant, noted: ''We welcome Microsoft's commitment to openness and the AMQP messaging specification. Their participation will be valuable to our efforts to support the development of interoperability solutions across heterogeneous IT environments.''

Members of the AMQP Working Group are Cisco, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Boerse Systems, Envoy Technologies Inc., The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., iMatix Corporation, IONA Technologies, J.P. Morgan, Novell, Rabbit Technologies Ltd., Red Hat Inc., TWIST Process Innovations Ltd., WSO2 and 29West Inc.