Last week I had the great pleasure of participating in the 2008 FutureGov conference in Bali, like last year the participants represented every country in the region and a set of thought leaders in the field of eGovernment here in Asia.
On the second day I presented the keynote as part of the technical track, and chose a subject that has been at the center of many of our conversations over the last two years – interoperability.
For anybody who would like a copy of the deck of slides I used, I have hosted the presentation here.
The presentation follows a theme and path that I have discussed on this blog many times before and centers around the idea that achieving interoperability in the industry today is not just an issue of producing a list of standards and expecting systems to work together.
As Microsoft we think about a combination of the way we design products, how we build communities of people to work on interoperability challenges, how we make IPR, API and communication protocol information available for developers alongside the role that we play as a contributor and an adopter of standards. All of these come together to address interoperability challenges faced by the industry and by our customers today.
For our customers these pillars often come together in the form of a coherent enterprise architecture and a formalized approach to developing government systems and solutions. In many cases I think many governments also face an additional layer of challenges that involve solving issues of policy, organization and collaboration across agencies.
I closed my discussion with an example of how these ideas have been shaping Microsoft strategy in respect to our engagements with the open source community. Here on this blog I’ve talked a few times about the journey we have been undertaking in this area over the last six or seven years.
When I look back on the hundreds of presentations that I listened to over the three days in Bali I have to admire the caliber of people that we have working on eGovernment here in Asia, and the role that Alphabet Media have played in bringing this group together for a third year.
I’m looking forward to joining everybody again next year!