CEO Steve Ballmer said the move was partly to address Microsoft's sticky legal situation with the European Union-EU regulators demanded that Microsoft share technical information about its software with outside developers-but was also about adapting to "the opportunities and risks of a more connected, more services-oriented world."
The first giant step will be putting 30,000 pages of technical documentation about how its Windows and Microsoft server programs communicate-information the company used to regard as a trade secret it licensed out to developers for a hefty fee. Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, said the move would make it easier for writers to create programs that tap into personal information on a PC.