Microsoft Malta on Tuesday announced the most recent evolution in the approach of interoperability with a series of presentations by officials at the Malta Hilton.
The event aimed to create additional choices for customers and foster new opportunities for business growth in the local IT industry.
Enterprise account manager Nick Tonna said that interoperability across applications and services has become a key requirement in business.
"All our enterprise business products are interoperable by design and follow industry standards and specifications to make it easy for customers to use them in conjunction with other technologies," he said.
The conference was opened by Communications Minister Austin Gatt.
"The policy and strategy of the government as well as the present technological infrastructure put Malta at an advantage when compared with other EU countries.
This is all due to our networks, both at central and local government level, which allow interoperability among all government departments and e-government services," Dr Gatt pointed out.
Malta has one of the most flexible systems in the EU as government has long recognised the important role played by ICT in the provision of government services. This strongly contrasts with other situations in some European countries where sometimes not even inter-ministerial communication can operate at this level.
Microsoft's CEE general manager and regional technology officer Wilfried Grommen, the event's keynote speaker, presented the concept of interoperability frameworks and how these align with Microsoft's interoperability principles. He also discussed some of the latest innovations in this field developed by Microsoft.
Participants later took part in a round table discussion on the European Interoperability framework which was facilitated by Mr Grommen.
Microsoft Malta solution specialist Alan Attard explained the concepts of portal-to-portal interoperability, while Joseph Seychell, Microsoft Consulting Services, gave a presentation on identity and access optimisation.