[Auth]pesky vendors

[Ron Burk]

> upgrade processes. But what about the existing users? How will they be
> inspired to upgrade so that dotGNU auth can be enabled?

If the idea is successful on the web page writer side,
then a lot of web sites will have some kind of insignia
that indicates they support the dotGNU standard. That's
an important part of the equation.

> 'When they
> upgrade' is what 'instantly' means, right? #:)

True, although that's appreciably more vendors spending
more money and effort to get people to use a dotGNU standard
than schemes that don't involve those pesky vendors :-).

> Do you know what the market penetration of form filler software is? If
> they've sold it to 5% of Windows users (and I think that's generous),
> what percentage of their customers do you think will enable dotGNU auth,
> after they upgrade?

That probably is generous -- do you know how many people
5% of the Windows market is? My guess is that Passport is
currently used in far less than 5% of all login activity on the
web.

> Unless Napster-like cult status can be attached to any dotGNU auth
> software, market penetration will probably be fairly thin, even with the
> support of these commercial vendors.

Thin compared to offering one of the alternative schemes that
have been discussed here? None of those alternative schemes
provided for any marketing effort whatsoever. None of them
had as their starting point the needs of existing consumers.
We're really just expressing different opinions about the
possibility of success at this point, but it's difficult to see the
argument that this scheme might have less success in the
marketplace than alternatives that really haven't focussed
on the marketplace at all.

> Have any of these venfors been contacted? How do they respond to the
> idea of poking Microsoft in the eye (by competing with Passport)?

That's the next stage. They already compete with Passport, of course.
AFAIK, Microsoft does not consider them important enough to
accomodate them in its schemes -- they assume all these vendors
will be wiped out if Passport is successful. I kinda doubt these folks
are too worried about angering Microsoft (you have to reach a certain
size before Microsoft's clout really matters -- they treat all the
little people fairly equally badly :-).

> If the vendors want to participate, they could help pump up the user
> base in the early stages.

It's the entire ecosystem that matters here. Attracting the web page
monkeys is at least as critical as signing up the vendors. That's why
it's important that the mechanism be accessible to even the most
non-technical creator of web pages. But there's a virtuous cycle
to be had. If you can sign up a few vendors, and a few dozen
modestly active web sites, you start to increase the motivation
for other sites and vendors to participate. Passport, of course,
cannot sign up any additional client support -- Microsoft wants to
own the client. Passport is having trouble signing up server side
support -- it's not truly trivial for web page designers to implement,
requires getting permission from Microsoft, and holds the promise
of getting taxed by Microsoft in the future for the privilege of
supporting their "standard". There's still a chance to threaten
Passport, IMO. This idea has the best chance of doing that,
from a strictly marketing perspective (but that's still nothing
but opinion, of course).

> but marketing is going to be critical for this
> project to succeed, no matter how great the tech is.

That's the part where we probably could not agree more :-).

> I want this project to succeed, for selfish reasons. If all we get is
> what the form-filler vendors bring us plus a few nerds, that won't be
> success, to me.

I'm in synch with you there, too!

Ron Burk
HighTechInfo.com, www.hightechinfo.com