Microsoft now is a OGC member

That's true, just read this press release.

From the Microsoft point of view, this seams like a logical move as some of their flagship products (SQL Server 2008 and Virtual Earth) will include or already include spatial support. What this also means is that for sure MS products will support the OGC standards witch is very good news.

I'm a confess addicted to OGC standards, even wen using third-party engines that do not provide the standard interfaces, I tend to create a abstraction for OGC compliancy.

With all that said, I welcome Microsoft move to join the Open Geospatial Consortium.

Spatial# and OGC Web Map Service

After some time of reflection, I've decided to implement the OGC Web Map Service in the Spatial# project.

OGC WMS will be also the supporting protocol for the client controls.

The choice was made to allow client and server parts of the spatial# project to live independently.

In the future one will be allowed to use the client user control against any WMS server. Additionally the server will also be available to any application that supports the OGC WMS standard.