Ooops, that should have read Open Standards Messaging Software, but we fell asleep before we got to the end! Why? Because it sounds soooo boring.

In a press release today, Microsoft has announced its decision to join the Advanced Message Queue Protocol (AMQP) Working Group. Oh, sorry we drifted off again. Yes, this must extremely boring.

But actually it’s very important.

The group is trying to develop an open industry standard for ubiquitous messaging. Currently there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different messaging standards around. Most integration projects require some kind of interface between systems that handle messaging. Millions of dollars are spent every year just re-building the interfaces between this system to that. It’s all wasted money. Money that should be spent on innovation and real value to the customer, but is instead spent on ‘plumbing’.

The key is interoperability. That’s the goal. Imagine having a set of providers in your toolset that allowed simple connection between each and every system you need to message between. [As an aside, on the orchestration side of the coin this is something that BizTalk has been attempting to provide for years now.]

Microsoft joins the likes of Cisco, Novell, Red Hat, and a bunch of financial institutions in this goal.

Sure, it sounds boring, but this is something to be applauded.

Maybe it’s just that I’m tired after a bit of travel, or perhaps it’s the downtown smog, but I’m just not in a happy mood this afternoon. The week is ending on a low.

I’m talking of course about the latest stock market news (which I’ve been blissfully disconnected from for the last day or so).

Here’s the damage (in case you too have been out of the loop). The markets are down again! Just when we started to think they’d perhaps hit a bottom, no, they’ve gone further south.

Here’s how they are stacking up:

Microsoft (green) is holding up OK, compared to the Dow (blue) and Nasdaq (yellow), whilst Google (purple) is feeling some pain and Apple (red) is getting smashed.

Surely it must getting close to buying time soon!.

OK, I’ve got to catch up on some sleep now. Perhaps this is all a bad dream.

Microsoft stock has weathered the current economic downturn pretty well we have to say. But that hasn’t stopped it hitting a few new lows over the last 2 weeks.

With a market capitalisation under $200B now, and expected forecast cuts coming, this really is a stock to look at buying soon. Wait for the results, and most likely a further fall, and then start buying up we say! (And thanks to WinBeta for the links)

Microsoft have strong product suites across multiple areas, and must surely be a strong contender when the markets to pick up (but as usual take our opinion on financial matters with a grain of salt). They will endure this climate well, and be ideally placed to pick up innovative technology companies cheaply in the coming months.

This month’s security updates indicate that IE6 has a few problems (Critical rating), and IE7 is looking pretty good (just Important rating). Further, if you were to base your view solely on the numbers you could be fooled into thinking that IE8 is a more secure browser (as some have been) due it not having any patch this month.

Whilst we’d love to believe that, the reality is far more likely to be that hardly anyone is using it yet, and thus no significant security flaws have been discovered so far. Give it time we say.

When we reported on Microsoft’s use of the term ‘Apple tax’ we didn’t have any concrete figures at hand. We just knew it had to be correct.

Thankfully Ed Bott has been through the process first hand and given us a full account of how much extra it costs to run a Mac than it does a Windows box. It’s around $500 for starters.

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Ina Fried reports that the next version of Office may make an appearance at PDC. There’s nothing on the agenda to confirm this, but we’ll let you know if we hear anything further.

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We quite like Mary-Jo’s new series on the Microsoft Big Brains.

Two weeks ago it was Gary Flake. He’s the Director of Live Labs.

Today it was Brian Harry. We’ve been long time devotees of Brian. He’s the man that made TFS cool.

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Give us a fucking break! Check out this load of shite from Microsoft’s PR hacks (yes, it even has its own virtual Pressroom).

Microsoft Corp. today announced Global Anti-Piracy Day, a simultaneous launch of education initiatives and enforcement actions in 49 countries on six continents to combat the sophisticated, illegal trade of pirated and counterfeit software. The programs announced today include intellectual property awareness campaigns, engagements with partner businesses, educational forums, local law enforcement training, and new legal actions against alleged software counterfeiters and pirates.

Source: Microsoft PressPass

The day aims to provide ‘a 24-hour snapshot of the range of education initiatives and legal actions that take place on an ongoing basis in local markets around the world’.

It’s even got its own tip-off hotline!

Sure, piracy is a problem, and Microsoft (and every other vendor) should work hard to combat it, but announcing a global day is just plain ludicrous. We think this day is much more appropriate.

Microsoft UK is releasing their new Equipt package today (yesterday by the time you read this). We think it’s a lame name, but we like the concept.

It’s a subscription service that offers Office + Live OneCare + Live Workspace + a whole stack of other Live services.

It’s available for a penny under 60 pounds per annum, and you can install each subscription on 3 machines. Note: this is only for home or student users – it’s not a company offering.

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Following our previous post referring to Joe Wilcox, comes this excellent example of why Joe is one of the best Microsoft watching thinkers around.

His analysis of Microsoft activities is spot-on in our opinion. You can read the post yourself, but the part that pricked our ears was his discussion about Microsoft partnering:

No company on the planet partners better than Microsoft-and that’s one of the most important factors to the company’s continued success. Affiliates and other potential partners will be harder-pressed as the economy slows. Microsoft should show them the money, how they could make more by partnering with Microsoft. While I expect Microsoft to see ad revenues decline with the economy, losses can be contained and partners snatched away from Google.

Source: Microsoft Watch

We totally agree with this. Microsoft has spent years fostering its Partner ecosystem, and is at pains to avoid competing with partners. In an economic downturn, partners will rely even more on Microsoft and in turn Microsoft – if remaining true to it principles – can gain much traction in key areas, all thanks to its partners. Joe’s comment above is in the context of advertising, but it applies equally to other areas such as Cloud and managed services offerings.

If we were a Microsoft Partner we’d be paying particular attention to key partner opportunities over the coming weeks and months. The economy may be gloomy, but there will be big opportunities for partners savvy enough to pick the key areas.

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