When a company -- any company for that matter -- deviates from standards, then all one is left with is 'glue'. Seamless integration becomes a distance dream. Interoperability arrangements are never needed if established standards are employed.

According to this new press release, Linspire has just joined Interop Alliance. In other words, it accepts Microsoft's reluctance to adhere to standard while Red Hat, for example, did not, until recently. This particular quote from Microsoft boggles the mind:

"Every day, enterprises across the globe face the challenges of making a wide variety of software from many different vendors work together."

How about this new article about the Open Solutions Alliance? Were patent deals needed? Of course not. Given Microsoft's attitute towards standards [zipped PDF], none of this is surprising anymore:

[Microsoft:] "we should take the lead in establishing a common approach to UI and to interoperability (of which OLE is only a part). Our efforts to date are focussed too much on our own apps, and only incidentally on the rest of the industry. We want to own these standards, so we should not participate in standards groups. Rather, we should call 'to me' to the industry and set a standard that works now and is for everyone's benefit. We are large enough that this can work."