No part of that is intrinsic. Example: Everybody is constantly using Internet Protocol, a standard implemented by vendors the world over, many of which having never encountered one another and yet their devices and programs can still interact with each other. From the perspective of the ordinary user it "just works", but it is in no way vendor or platform-specific.
Indeed, this generally works better than vendor-specific technologies as soon as you encounter the real world where different people have different stuff. Safari works just fine with Linux webservers because they're interacting using open standards. Then you want to get your Mac to work with Active Directory and it's a frustrating mess because it's not open standards and neither vendor wants to facilitate the use of the other's proprietary technology.
Indeed, this generally works better than vendor-specific technologies as soon as you encounter the real world where different people have different stuff. Safari works just fine with Linux webservers because they're interacting using open standards. Then you want to get your Mac to work with Active Directory and it's a frustrating mess because it's not open standards and neither vendor wants to facilitate the use of the other's proprietary technology.