At the recent Catalyst Conference, John Shewchuk of Microsoft said, essentially, “InfoCard is the concept. Windows CardSpace is a specific selector, using the InfoCard concept.”

During the Q&A period for the panel on which he sat, I asked John, “What is Microsoft’s motivation for committing so many resources to the InfoCard/CardSpace initiative?”

His response was predictable: Microsoft’s customers demand interoperability.

OK. I’ll take that as a given. It is customer demand that has driven the recent Sun Microsystems / Microsoft interoperability efforts. But I think the motivation is much deeper than that. The motivation is to establish preeminence in the battle for large-scale identity infrastructure. Microsoft isn’t going to make money from CardSpace on the desktop. It will be yet another feature of Windows. But if the big dogs (e.g. Yahoo, Amazon, eBay) adopt the Microsoft meta system for User-centric Identity, Microsoft will have a leg up on other competitors, including our own Sun Microsystems, for selling large-scale Identity infrastructure to identity providers and relying parties.

Make no mistake. User-centric Identity is not some altruistic quest for identity/privacy nirvana. It is an intense competition for who will build the infrastructure to make it happen.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Sun Microsystems,
Microsoft,
CardSpace,
InfoCard,
User-Centric Identity

Dave Kearns headlined his recent newsletter, “Sun says it will not seek licenses for use of SAML patents”

“That means that whether or not Sun owns patents on methods used by SAML, it will refrain from asking anyone to license that intellectual property. Not that Sun will grant a royalty-free license, but that it simply will not require one … So what does it mean? It means that any lingering doubt that a vendor or customer could be liable for royalties somewhere down the road are substantially eliminated. Companies can implement SAML 2.0-based applications and services with less worry that future liability could kill a project or seriously drain a company’s finances.”

Eve Maler made the first public announcement of this matter at the Catalyst Conference. There was little comment from members of the panel on which she sat. I don’t think many people realized the positive ramifications of the statement.

I’m no lawyer, so I cannot comment on why this is necessary from a legal standpoint, but the announcement underlines the commitment Sun Microsystems had made to open standards and the growth of the Identity Management marketplace.

By the way, I took the photo of Dave when we met at the Catalyst Conference. One of his comments: “It’s nice to meet another blogger with grandchildren!”

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Sun Microsystems,
SAML
Dave Kearns

Rohan, I admire you for your gracious tolerance. When I lived in the UK during the early 1970’s, the term “Paki” was used in very derogatory ways. I don’t know the real intent of the Horton’s guy who addressed you as a Paki, but I hope he was inspired to better sensitivity through your coaching.

And I’m honored, Rohan, that you would contact me and ask permission to use the name of my blog, “Discovering Identity” in his post yesterday. As I said in our IM exchange last night, “As I chose the title “Discoverying Identity” for my blog, I felt it had a double meaning. One meaning was the professional one — progressively understanding the Identity Management market and technology. But the other meaning is precisely what you are planning to address in your blog — how do we find who we really are? What is our own personal idenity?”

You have obviously discovered yours. Thanks for your insight.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Rohan Pinto