Teaming Up to Support OData: Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Progress Software, SAP, & WSO2

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

There is a vast amount of data available today that is being collected and stored at an unprecedented rate.  Market demand is growing for easy access to this data across multiple platforms and devices. The move to cloud computing is also increasing pressure to create a more open and programmable Web by having a common approach to expose and consume data. To help address this demand, Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Progress Software, SAP, and WSO2 announced last week that they are proposing an Open Data Protocol (OData) Technical Committee in the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), an international open standards consortium. 

Built on standards such as HTTP, JSON and AtomPub, OData is an open web protocol for unlocking and sharing data — freeing it from silos that exist in some software applications today.  With OData, developers are able to build cross-platform Web and mobile applications. Mary Jo Foley and Chris Woodruff published a great ZDNet article earlier this month on why OData matters, stating, “Microsoft is bringing a richer data experience for developers, information workers and data journalists to consume and analyze data from any source publishing with the OData protocol.”  To learn more about how organizations are using OData today and how a variety of open source technologies can benefit from OData support, check out last week’s post on the Interoperability @ Microsoft blog.