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I suspect both you and this guy have a pretty broad definition of innovation, that pretty much includes anything that involves development.

Well no, as I explained for Burkhardt in his former role at NYSE it was in enabling him to get two suppliers working together quickly to come up with new solutions to solve his business problems and allow the NYSE to differentiate itself in the market.

Well yeah.

Two suppliers working together?

Now that's REAL innovation! It's never been done before!

From your description, it's just a variation on a theme. It's valuable. It might even be interesting. But innovative? Nah...

His point was that he asked two vendors to collaborate and solve a particular problem that would enable his business to differentiate itself. They were able to do so quickly and without fuss because they both have access to each other's code by default. In contrast, he said, two proprietary vendors would likely have spent a few months arguing about the legal implications of a collaboration before embarking on a joint development agreement that may or may not solve his particular problem.

The innovation is not getting two vendors to work together, it's the results of their collaboration and getting it to market months earlier than a comparable proprietary collaboration.

It was all there in the original post.