Re: [DotGNU](slashdot) Microsoft dumps hailstorm ?

[Matthew C. Tedder]

> On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>
> > A failure of "Passport" would/will(?) be a much more serious blow
> > to them.  Unless Microsoft succeeds with that, all their current
> > cash cows will die a slow and painful death through competition
> > from Free Software.  I would predict that if they have to, they
> > will use up to half of the money that they have in the bank on
> > trying to make "Passport" stick.  (The other half would be spent
> > on expanding into areas of business which are not so vulnerable
> > to competition from Free Software, such as all kinds of
> > entertainment.)
> >

How can Passport die?  It virtually forces everyone who buys one of
the newer Microsoft products to sign up.  If no one else uses it then
it will still be there and Microsoft's products alone would have a
single sign-on.  With this, they will outcompete opponants and
thus force others to adopt it also.  The perceived implications of press
releases mean nothing in the face of brazen facts to the contrary.

--Matthew

>
> I gleaned from the article that Passport was one of the Hailstorm services
> that was having it's implementation altered.  The article called it
> "Persona".  However, it basically described most of what passport does.
> It also listed prior passport supporters like e-bay who now no longer
> support passport.  I tend to believe that passport is at least partially
> rolled into this decision - and if it isn't, the decision signals future
> problems for passport in any case, because the market forces sited apply
> equally to passport.
>
> The article was still very fuzzy.  I will be seeking independant
> verification of this story.  For a second I thought it was April fools
> day.
>
> But, in either case, all this does is make me feel a bit better in general
> about the future of Free Software.  DotGNU may stand in contention with
> MS, but it stands on it's own as well.  If MS was no longer explicitely an
> adversary on the webservices auth front, it in no way lessens the impact
> of this project.
>
> -Barry
>
>
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