re: Nokia Supports the Beast for Liberty Alliance
Timo Skyytta, Nokia representative and chairman of the Liberty Alliance architecture group, said Microsoft's expertise would make a laudable contribution to the organisation's ongoing work. Skytta said: "It would help with the development of specifications for sure. Microsoft has a lot of experience having developed the whole .Net framework."
>> Liberty Alliance Not Very Allied Over Microsoft
16th July 2002
Silicon.com
On the day the Liberty Alliance released its first set of technical specifications it also issued conflicting views on whether Microsoft's presence within the organisation will help or hinder future developments.
Microsoft's decision not to join the Alliance has been a bone of contention since the outset.
In October of last year the Liberty Alliance was formed to create an open view of web services and has always argued that any company taking sole control of a centralised authentication system on the web was bad for the user community.
Instead the organisation, which was originally driven by Sun, opted for a federated model where numerous companies individually host related customer data.
These companies then link to one another via approved standards. Microsoft has so far refused to become a member of the Alliance.
But yesterday, as the Liberty Alliance unveiled its first phase of technical specifications, two of its most prominent members offered conflicting opinions on just how worthy Microsoft's contribution might be.
Timo Skyytta, Nokia representative and chairman of the Liberty Alliance architecture group, said Microsoft's expertise would make a laudable contribution to the organisation's ongoing work.
Skytta said: "It would help with the development of specifications for sure. Microsoft has a lot of experience having developed the whole .Net framework."
However, Nokia's view is at odds with those held by Professor Michael Walker, group research and development director of Vodafone and a member of the management board of the Liberty Alliance.
He said: "If Microsoft were to join it wouldn't have an impact on the speed or quality of the development of the next phase of technical specifications. The combined expertise of the companies behind the Liberty Alliance is just as good as Microsoft's."
The first phase of specifications covers the authentication process, such as handling usernames and passwords across Liberty Alliance membership. The next phase, which is set to be released at the beginning of 2003, will deal with standards for the authorisation of information such as credit card numbers. <<
Some Recent Commentary:
>> Web Services Politics - The Stand Off Between The Liberty Alliance And Microsoft
Rebel alliance and evil empire? Not quite...
21st June 2002
Silicon.com
The shaping of the development of web services can very broadly be split into two spheres of influence, that of Microsoft and that of a group calling itself the Liberty Alliance. Who's winning and is there a chance for détente? Heather McLean reports.
Microsoft has always liked to do things its own way. However, in 2000 it helped create a key web services protocol, Soap (Simple Object Access Protocol), and things haven't been the same since.
The creation of Soap led to a torrent of protocol development that aroused the interest of many companies. But even though Microsoft busied itself with the creation of products based on emerging web services standards, other organisations began to worry the new handful of protocols would be taken over by the Microsoft machine.
Web services development subsequently turned into a scuffle over Microsoft's single sign-on software Passport, part of the .Net environment. It stood opposed to everyone else's views, which shy away from giving one company too much personal identification information.
To combat Microsoft's plans the Liberty Alliance was formed in October 2001. It set out to promote an open view of web services, just eight months after Microsoft announced its web services project, Hailstorm (later .Net MyServices), that was based on its .Net strategy.
Project Hailstorm/.Net MyServices represented a centralised strategy on the net whereby users' personal preferences and details - including credit card information - could be stored by Microsoft.
The Liberty Alliance's members - ranging from IBM to Sun Microsystems to Visa - said Microsoft's position as the sole controller of a centralised authentication system on the web was misguided.
The Liberty Alliance based its strategy on a federated model meaning a range of companies individually host related customer data connected using approved web service standards.
Jeff Vies, spokesman for the Liberty Alliance at Sun Microsystems, where he is senior director of Sun One business alliances, said: "The Liberty Alliance's goal is quite simply interoperability. We want a truly open standard for doing network identification across the web."
Microsoft changed its all-encompassing MyServices approach in April this year when it admitted customer gains appeared to have failed to materialise. Its centralised vision had been met with pressure and publicity for a federated model from the Liberty Alliance and others.
James Governor, analyst at research company Illuminata, said: "There is no doubt Microsoft has had a knock back from a lot of companies around the world with MyServices. Over the last couple of months there have been admissions from the company that it was wrong and that now the time has come to draw a line in the sand. It is revisiting and rethinking that strategy now."
Sarah Kent, corporate business development manager EMEA at RSA Security, a founding member of the Liberty Alliance, said Microsoft made a massive mistake with MyServices. "Enterprises were concerned Microsoft's idea failed to consider a federated model for user authentication," she said.
Despite Kent and Governor's assessments, John Noakes, a Microsoft web services spokesman, flatly denies the company ever shunned a federated model. He said: "The federated model was always on our mind, ever since we announced Hailstorm in February 2001."
RSA's Kent vehemently disagrees with Noakes' statement. She said: "Initially the whole .Net structure was Microsoft-only but over the last six months it has begun opening to partnering with other businesses."
She claims this is because user groups such as Citibank expressed an interest in .Net but were concerned about Microsoft hosting too much data.
Noakes finally admitted Kent has a point: "The announcement we made at the launch of Hailstorm was predicated on a vision and it's that vision which has changed. We got feedback from people who said they were comfortable with the idea of XML web services but not with Microsoft hosting that, so we have readjusted.
"The federated model will be our starting point so Microsoft customers can host the service themselves and we will just sell the software and tools to help them do that," Noakes added.
Illuminata's Governor is critical of Noakes' interpretation. He said: "Successful marketing sometimes requires the memory of a goldfish. Microsoft is very good at forgetting the past."
Since its inception the Liberty Alliance says it has tried to welcome Microsoft into the fold but the software giant has, so far, refused to be swayed.
Sun's Vies commented: "If Microsoft claims it is into interoperability, it has an excellent reason to join the Liberty Alliance. We are interested in having Microsoft working with us. I like to think Microsoft and the Liberty Alliance are aligned. This isn't a competition with Passport. The goal is interoperability."
Microsoft's Noakes explained his company's recalcitrance to make friends in the web services playground. "Until Liberty produces something we don't know what they're talking about," he said. "Passport is real and live but the Liberty Alliance specification doesn't even exist today so we have nothing to give a view on. We will maintain a watching brief on Liberty."
While Microsoft has continued to belittle Liberty's approach, RSA's Kent said time will work in the latter's favour.
She explained: "The first version of the Liberty specification is due out soon and will use standards that are already in use on the market, so a lot more organisations will agree with them."
Microsoft has also been throwing the interoperability word around lately and is pushing the boat out with alliances, including a web services security organisation called the Web Services Interoperability Forum (WS-I) that it started up in April with IBM and Verisign, causing some controversy as Sun was refused entry into the founding team.
RSA's Kent said: "Microsoft has made the decision not to go it alone, creating its own Liberty Alliance. It's created products on top of its.Net structure and now that people said the product should open up, it has created its own standard."
This may at times look like a playground scrap but it is an important one, set to continue for the next couple of years as Microsoft works on recruiting its own gang that will probably include everyone except Sun - unless Sun wants to play in goal.
There is a growing feeling that Microsoft may be getting the upper hand but it's still hard to know for sure. And several analysts questioned for this article all point out one thing - the most important ingredients for web services are the protocols themselves, and they're already out there. <<
Also:
>> Sun Rises on Liberty
16th July 2002
Sun Microsystems has shipped the first products based on the Liberty Alliance specifications for managing consumer identity on the internet.
Widely touted as the prime rival to Microsoft's Passport identity and authentication software, the Liberty alliance issued its specifications yesterday.
As the dominant player and one of the founding members, Sun is the prime mover in the Liberty Alliance, so its move to support the new specs has been widely anticipated.
Sun today unveiled what it claimed was an "end-to-end solution" to address the "needs for heightened security, privacy and federated identity management."
The product stack available today includes a Sun One Identity Server, a Sun ONE Directory Server, integration with the Solaris operating system and professional services.
Other products, such as portal software, will be integrated at a later date.
Directory services player Novell has also announced products based on the specifications. <<
- Eric - |
