IUPAC/InChI joins the Microsoft BioIT Alliance

On the CHMINF-L mailing list it was reported that the IUPAC InChI/InChIKey project joins Microsoft BioIT Alliance. Quoting:

The establishment of the BioIT Alliance in April 2006 by Microsoft and leading organizations in the life science industries was very much a reflection of this scenario, and the Alliance has now been extended to include a major Scientific Union, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The importance of IUPACs contribution to the enterprise lies primarily in the responsibility of this organization for establishing standards for transmitting chemical information.

I am political quite illiterate, and have no idea why the BioIT Alliance could not use InChI or InChIKey without this mashup. However, I am comforted in the knowledge that the IUPAC InChI/InChIKey project will make sure the Microsoft will not use the InChIKey as drug identifier, which would give very nice (but letal) Millenium-bug like situations when that unlike key clash was found ;)