For example, The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which will undoubtedly play a significant role in the Internet's future, is an idea hatched in Microsoft's labs. That's pretty innovative, if you ask me.
Based on my discussions with Microsoft wireless architect Mike Foley, who also chairs the industry consortium that oversees Bluetooth (Bluetooth SIG, I'll go out on a limb and say that Microsoft is showing signs of innovation in the wireless space as well).
Microsoft has released to manufacturers an OS update that will bake support for Bluetooth right into Windows XP. When combined with WiFi (802.11a/b-based wireless Ethernet), Microsoft will call this its "Wireless Desktop"-- a PC that literally has no cables save a power cord. Microsoft believes the wireless PC will spawn new innovations from systems vendors in terms of the PC's design and form factor.
But it's not Microsoft's reaction time to a burgeoning technology that's innovative. What's innovative is Foley's vision for where wireless technologies like Bluetooth fit into the grander scheme of things.
For example, Foley already seems determined to turn Bluetooth's device-specific profiles of today (what Bob Frankston called baggage in my previous column on this topic) into a legacy that only requires ongoing, perhaps dwindling support tomorrow.
Not only does Foley understand where Bluetooth best fits into the world, but he also understands why that future should be inextricably linked to version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) and what sort of innovations can result from such a marriage.
Prior to chairing Bluetooth SIG, Foley chaired one of its working groups. The focus of that working group was Bluetooth's Personal Area Network (PAN) profile, a part of which is IPv6 support.
"Microsoft will support legacy profiles to support existing devices," explained Foley, "But our feeling is that all new innovation for Bluetooth should be done using PAN and IPv6. This way, Bluetooth automatically inherits any of the benefits that come from improvements to the Internet's protocols, and solutions that work with them. For example, if I make a printer, I would like to use the same software to connect that printer to the network regardless of what physical transports are used."
To make that vision a reality, however, Foley's PAN working group had to get under the hood of Bluetooth to overcome some of its weaknesses.
Bluetooth is a master-slave technology, and that aspect of it is still there in the PAN profile. It's also a TDMA-based technology where the slaves (usually devices like keyboards, mice, etc.) can only "speak" during timeslots allocated to them.
The master (usually a PC or an access point) is in charge of that allocation. But, with IPv6 riding on top of a master-slave system like Bluetooth, it's up to the master to make sure that none of the slaves are starved for communication. "To that extent." said Foley, "I think we mapped IP onto it reasonably well."
But, according to Foley, one thing that's not in the Bluetooth specification that you might find in other wireless technologies like WiFi is the ability to natively handle multicasts, where one node can talk to many nodes with a single transmission.
"There's a workaround to the problem in the current PAN profile," said Foley, "but Bluetooth takes a performance hit for using it. If we're on an Ethernet segment with four PC's and one PC does a multicast, the rest hear it and process it in the same slice of time. With Bluetooth's master-slave architecture, it serialises a multicast into a series of unicasts that each require their own slice of time."
Microsoft DID NOT create SOAP!
Dave Winer, DevelopMentor and the folk working on XML-RPC played the biggest part in the development of this technology.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/04/22/020422opcurve.xml
http://dave.editthispage.com/myNameIsDaveWiner