Quest is first to license Microsoft protocol

Deal offers deep access to server software guts and helps answer Commission's demands

Performance-optimisation specialist Quest Software has become the first software licensee for Microsoft’s Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) that was established following the EC’s March 2004 verdict on the company’s behaviour.

Microsoft was criticised by the EC on 1 March for setting high terms for protocol usage and not doing enough to encourage deep interoperability with its server products. The Quest deal, signed on the same day, may go some way towards resolving that dispute.

Quest said that access to the protocol would offer more scope to integrate Unix, Linux and Java authentication systems with Active Directory.

“We get more and more customers asking for tighter integration with Microsoft products and across platforms, and [licensing the protocol] allows us to do that,” said Joe Baguley, Quest global product director.

“It also allows us much deeper access to Group Policy and Active Directory services. Until now, we’ve been stuck with standard APIs and there are some things you can’t do with them. This gives us the ability to see the workings of the system,” Baguley added.

Baguley said the fruits of the protocol work would be felt next year in products for Microsoft’s next server operating system, codenamed Longhorn, and for the recently released command-line shell PowerShell.