Post #22,708
12/30/01 11:05:04 AM
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Speaking of Passport support
I just read the other day that Sun's authentication software is gaining support from frotune 500 companies that are nervous about Microsoft. AmExp, AOL/TW, and others I can't remember.
In regards to my concern about MSFT's continued stranglehold on the industry, it is rapidly diminishing (in spite of the DoJ's settlement) as I see companies start using OSS (Microsoft, for instance) . Remember that 9 states still remain focused on ensuring that the penalties fit the crimes Microsoft committed.
There is something about having control over one's own future that makes me think that Open-Source will eventually become more popular that proprietary software, considering how important software is to our daily lives. And as Wade mentions, security might be important too.
P.S. Did you read Walter Mossberg's column in the Wall Street Journal that stated that Microsoft won the case while consumers lost. He tends to agree with you that competition is once again set-back in the software universe.
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Post #22,713
12/30/01 1:25:53 PM
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Liberty Alliance Charter Members:
ActivCard, American Airlines, American Express, AOL Time Warner, the Apache Software Foundation, Bank of America, Bell Canada, Cingular Wireless, Cisco Systems, CollabNet, Dun & Bradstreet, eBay, Entrust, Fidelity Investments, France Telecom, Gemplus, General Motors, Global Crossing, Hewlett-Packard, i2, Intuit, Liberate Technologies, Mastercard International, Nokia, NTT, DoCoMo, O'Reilly & Associates, Openwave, RealNetworks, RSA Security, Sabre, Schlumberger, Sony Corporation, Sprint, Sun Microsystems, Travelocity, United Airlines, Verisign, Vodafone.
The few significant companies signed with Passport (such as eBay) are also signed with the Liberty Alliance. Distrust of Microsoft is becoming intense in the financial community.
Note also that Liberate, who's Linux based set-top boxes have been eating Microsoft's lunch in the cable TV business, has signed on.
The fact that with Liberty Alliance each financial organization can authenticate their own customers on their own servers while Passport requires everyone to sign on through Microsoft's servers and accept Microsoft services has got to be a very telling point.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #22,715
12/30/01 3:59:30 PM
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Competition
Life gets interesting when you compete with everybody. That list is a very interesting who's who of organizations which either hate Microsoft's guts (and don't discriminate: the other parts are reviled as well), or are directly threatened by Microsoft in one of the industries the Beast in Redmond has targetted: operating systems, networks, financial services, publishing, media, web servers, communications, travel and reservation systems, and media.
I read it in 1998 in Fortune, heard it a couple of weeks later at Visa Int'l: Microsoft was taking on the financial world, and being seen more and more as the most significant single competitor by market leaders in a wide range of industries. Visa's incoming president listed the top three competitors as: Mastercard, AmEx, and Microsoft...I guess it doesn't pay to Discover....
Two signifcant names not on that list: IBM (not entirely suprising given their relationship to Sun), and Oracle (which I do find surprising).
I'd also be interested to see a list of companies which are significant Microsoft partners, to the point that they'd be unwilling to ally with a competing OS or model. Right now the only major big entities that come to mind are Dell and Disney (former likes selling boxes, latter wants a locked-down OS). Others? Have to admit I'm somewhat ignorant on the field.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
[link|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/|[link|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/]]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
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Post #22,717
12/30/01 4:49:14 PM
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Shucks.. somewhere in-between __?__lies our fate.
Andy gave us a little note of CHEER for the new year and you properly remind us to: check the Beast's Forces.
Still, Dell is understandable - Michael being cut from the same slime-mold as Billy; Disney ... an older Michael with obviously innate Beast-genes and (as usual) too much power for his level of civilization.
So it's the Ordinary Capitalist Crap Shoot, even if bankers' IQs have possibly drifted upwards towards 3 figures (?) The nastiest asshole shall still be the determinant. We know which [oil] group Dubya-Cheney will [oil] favor, don't we?
So have a reasonably non-miserable New Year y'all!
Ashton
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Post #22,731
12/31/01 3:39:35 AM
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Not a downer
My point was that MSFT's list of allies seems to be short. Appallingly short, as far as I can see, though again, I'm not watching this particularly closely. Just trying to keep tabs on things. From a current piece at the Inquirer, the already soured MSFT-Intel alliance looks to be widening further.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
[link|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/|[link|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/]]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
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Post #22,718
12/30/01 4:54:00 PM
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Microsoft's entire list . .
. . from their Hailstorm press site is: American Express, Click Commerce, eBay, Expedia.com and Groove Networks, but they claim "75 Passport partners". Starbuck's and McAfee are known to use Passport for some authentication. Of these: - Click Commerce is completely committed to .NET as the basis of their ecommerce offerings.
- eBay has committed to making their auction engine a major .NET service (but joined the Liberty Alliance anyway).
- Expedia.com was, until a couple months ago, a part of Microsoft.
- Groove Networks has received a substantial financial investment from Microsoft.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #22,720
12/30/01 6:24:39 PM
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Thanks.
That's a much more detailed list than I read in the WSJ (or whatever paper I happened to be reading at the airport).
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Post #22,745
12/31/01 11:58:14 AM
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Re: Liberty Alliance Charter Members: Microsoft also?!!
What's up with that? Looks like a repeat of Java contamination or has Microsoft changed their nature?
[link|http://www.internetweek.com/story/INW20011219S0007|MasterCard Joins Liberty Alliance, Microsoft Considering Membership]
By Mitch Wagner, 12/19/01
The Liberty Alliance Project said Wednesday that MasterCard International has joined its ranks, and Microsoft said it's considering signing up.
The alliance is working to develop authentication standards for both e-commerce and real-world business, comparable to Microsoft's Passport technology. Announced in September, the group has about 35 member companies, including America Online, American Airlines, American Express, Bank of America, General Motors, Nokia, RealNetworks and Sun Microsystems.
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Post #22,746
12/31/01 12:10:40 PM
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Sure, it's the 3 E's in action
Embrace, extend, extinguish. Nothing new to see here...
-H
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Post #22,748
12/31/01 12:30:57 PM
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It's been a while since I've heard that phrase.
Did we ever determine if this strategy would work against Open-Source?
MSFT has already embraced BSD in order to make Windows more stable. Will they therefore find a way to extinguish BSD? Tough question eh?
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Post #22,749
12/31/01 1:51:05 PM
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Same Standards Game
Sounds like you don't quite understand how standards groups work.
There are typically two kinds of participants. Participants with solutions to sell (typically software vendors), and participants who have a problem that they wan't solved. I think you've forgotten the former participants.
Rather than start from scratch, the vendors will pitch their products and promis to open up their specification (but not implementation of said specification) so others can develop competing implementations (although any newcomers are going to be at least 2 years behind). The goal is to only open enough spec to appear to be useful. You want to keep some little essential but unobvious capabilities out of the spec. This is later opened up in rev 2. The idea is to keep the spec one generation behind your capability so you can keep your competitiors busy trying to catch up with where you were last year as you move forwards with the next generation product. Its a treadmill.
The people who want the problem solved evaluate vendor proposals and pick one or more to be starting points. Minor compromises are made sometimes to allow a couple vendors to migrate towards a central spec that is a composite of their capabilities.
My guess is MS will be proposing "opening" the Passport spec for interop with competing implementations. If they do it right, Passport will be the first compliant implementation of the Liberty spec and all the others will be at least a year behind in implementing competing versions.
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Post #22,761
12/31/01 5:42:40 PM
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Don't think so - in this case.
I think Microsoft's intent would be to gather competitive information - and interfere as much as they could. I think they are hesitating for several reasons: 1) it increases the credibility of the enemey; 2) it is the enemy, and they'd be treated with high suspicion; 3) the press would have fun with it if they applied and were rejected; 4) members of the Aliance are well aware of all these points.
I'm sure Microsoft is hoping this thing will just go away (as have so many other standards efforts), but if it works, Passport will be just another authentication portal into the Liberty Alliance network. This is not how Microsoft sees the world.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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