[ Thanks to George
Mitchell for this link. ]
“Application programming interfaces are a geeky nugget of
technology, but whoever controls them controls the tech world
— a fact Microsoft and the DOJ know all too well.”
“As both sides in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial rush to
paint their perspective of the software giant’s future — niggling
over handfuls of words and phrases throughout a flurry of
last-minute legal documents — their filings are spotlighting a
geeky nugget of technology that for years has spelled dominance for
Microsoft: the API.”
“APIs, or application programming interfaces, are hooks in
software that allow applications to work with the operating system.
They’ve been compared with an electrical socket, which allows
outside products (in this case, applications) to plug into the
electrical system (in this case, Windows).
“Control of the APIs themselves, or control over who gets them,
has been crucial to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) because the company
has been able to ensure that its applications work better with the
operating system than any other applications — and that
non-Microsoft applications makers get access to Windows technology
later, if at all.”