Tech companies have learned that interoperability is better and more lucrative than the old-style fights and grudges of the Gates-Ellison-Jobs era. Who would have believed that Microsoft would embrace open-source, or make software to operate on Apple products?
On the other side of the spectrum you have industrial companies, in particular automakers, sticking to their own sandboxes. Can you imagine the cost savings for consumers, not to imagine the immense benefits to the environment, if automakers and other industrial concerns could allow for some level of "interoperability?" A Ford mirror that could just as easily be fitted to a Jaguar, or lamps manufactured by Nissan fitting into a BMW.
Isn't it time to think much bigger than just each company's selfish ends?
