Today Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that it is increasing the openness and interoperability of its products to achieve increased compatibility with competitors’ products and more choice for customers, developers, partners, and competitors. Microsoft historically has been quite guarded with its trade secrets—as are most technology companies—so this is a monumental shift in strategic thinking for the software giant, as is recognized by the CEO Steve Ballmer:

“These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies. For the past 33 years, we have shared a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners around the world and helped build the industry, but today’s announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency. Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies.”

Microsoft is implementing the following new business processes and actions to help achieve said goal:

• ensuring open connections
• promoting data portability
• enhancing support for industry standards
• fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities

Now, I’m not a technological wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that these changes are a direct result of the increasing strength of Microsoft’s competitors (ie. Apple Inc. – NASDAQ:AAPL), as well as the changing dynamics within the technology market towards a demand for more opensourcing and cross-product compatibility. Perhaps Microsoft is finally understanding that its stranglehold on the software market is weakening, and in order to continue to stay competitive and attractive to consumers, it needs to open its doors to a little cooperation and inclusion. Be a little more cordial to its neighbors. Bring over a tray of brownies.

I think I’m going to like this new neighborhood.