Quest Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: QSFT) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today jointly announced that Quest has become the first licensee in the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) established following the European Commission’s March 2004 decision.

Quest officials said the agreement to license Microsoft’s protocol technology will extend and enrich interoperability capabilities for customers working across heterogeneous server environments. Quest plans to develop innovative software solutions, incorporating Microsoft protocols, which will provide customers with expanded capability to integrate Unix, Linux and Java authentication systems with Active Directory beyond what is available from Quest today. Today’s announcement is the latest step by Quest and Microsoft to provide easy and effective ways to secure and manage user identities across a heterogeneous IT infrastructure.

“Our mutual goal has been to ensure enterprise organizations needing to manage a diverse infrastructure can do so in a practical way and leverage their existing investments in technology and people,” said Doug Garn, president, Quest Software. “The value of this agreement is that Quest is now better positioned than ever to implement truly interoperable solutions for customers that do not require them to support and maintain multiple islands of technologies and redundant processes.”