What it means for software to be compatible
interacts with and shares information correctly with other software
Management Market
Examples of compatible software are 举个栗子
• Cutting text from a Web page and pasting it into a document opened in your word
processor 从网页上剪切文本并将其粘贴到在文字处理器中打开的文档中
• Saving accounting data from one spreadsheet program and then loading it into a completely different spreadsheet program 从一个电子表格程序保存会计数据，然后将其加载到完全不同的电子表格程序中
• Having photograph touchup software work correctly on different versions of the same operating system 使照片修饰软件可以在同一操作系统的不同版本上正常工作
• Having your word processor load in the names and addresses from your contact management program and print out personalized invitations and envelopes 将文字处理器加载到联系人管理程序的名称和地址中，并打印出个性化的邀请和信封
• Upgrading to a new database program and having all your existing databases load in and work just as they did with the old program 升级到新的数据库程序，并像使用旧程序一样加载和运行所有现有数据库
Platform and Application Version
Selecting the target platform or the compatible applications is really a program management or a marketing task. They will also identify the version or versions that the software need s to be compatible with.
1. Backward and Forward Compatibility.
Backward/Forward Compatibility: If something is backward/forward compatible, it will work with previous/future versions of the software.
2. The Impact of Testing Multiple Versions.
We can not test all the thousands of software programs on your operation system, so we need to decide which ones are the most important to test. The key word is important.
high level standards and low level standards
low level are more important – detail
Data sharing compatibility
Here are a few examples:
• File save and file load
• File export and file import
• Cut, copy, and paste
实现方法
crowdsourcing 众包