Senior Microsoft representatives met with InfoWorld on Thursday to highlight identity management; Web services and related development; collaboration between information workers and system management comprise the new interoperability focus.

"We are really working on new protocols in the WS-* [spoken as Web services star] space that enable interoperability across identity systems," said Jean Paoli, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and XML architecture.

Lat week, Microsoft vowed to . Paoli emphasized the move as evidence of the commitment.

WS-* represents a series of Web services-related specifications for standardization in areas such as security and messaging.

A lot of the issues Microsoft has in interoperability tend to fall into these four categories, said Tom Robertson, the company's general manager of interoperability and standards.