Via Slashdot…  Oh look…Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is pleading for openness…

Apple is top of mind for execs at MWC

BARCELONA, Spain–iPhone maker Apple isn’t at GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009 along with the rest of the mobile phone industry, but the company’s growing success is definitely top of mind for key executives in the mobile market.

The iPhone and Apple’s successful App Store got more than a passing mention on Tuesday during a panel moderated by The Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg.

…

Ballmer argued that device openness was important to give customers more choices. And he pointed to the number of choices that Windows Mobile customers have when choosing a device.

"I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software," he said. "Openness is central because it’s the foundation of choice."

This from the company that tied Internet Explorer to the Windows OS in order to kill Netscape.  This from the company that penalized computer makers (and for all I know still does) for offering their customers Linux too if they wanted Linux.  This from the man who still insists that Linux violates a number of Microsoft patents, but won’t say which ones.  This from the company that gamed the ISO standards process by forcing through its own 6000+ page "open xml" format, which is riddled with Redmond patents, and Microsoft Office legacy bugs and glitches over the vendor neutral Open Document format, so Microsoft could claim MS Office documents were "open", despite the fact that nobody but Microsoft can implement this so-called "open" format in its entirety.  Openess anyone? 

Yeah…Apple is a closed system.  You can’t run the iPhone OS on any other phone but an iPhone.  You can’t run Mac OS on any other computers but Apple’s.  Apple hardware needs Apple software to run.  Microsoft’s definition of openness on the other hand, is everything needs Microsoft software to run.  When the whole world is locked tight as a drum into Microsoft platforms, then everything will be naturally and seemlessly interoperable.  Openness.

Hey Steve…you want openness?  Publish your file formats.