Open Geospatial Consortium

It's ironic in a way, but I was unfamiliar with the Open Geospatial Consortium until seeing mention that Microsoft was joining as a principle member. Their standards seem worth looking at, but I have no sense of how much their reference model or specifications are used or what their compliance certification means for content providers or users, other than the promise of interoperability. They have a long list of registered products, not a lot of which seem to be noted as compliant yet.