Microsoft has always been a strong supporter of standards-based computing. Because delivering interoperability and compatibility has always been a key component of Microsoft's success, we've always adopted important formal standards. And as the market dictates, we implement de-facto standards, too. In fact, we've been the source of many of those ourselves. So for strategic and competitive reasons, we pay very close attention to both kinds of standards.
Every good company does.
But standards have a tendency to be fixed in time. So what we try to do when we design our products, is take these standards and implement them immediately for interoperability and compatibility. At the same time, we want to move them forward so we can add more value to our products. Ultimately, we can't innovate if we can't extend standards. Exchange has always been very focused on standards.