Zoho. User Innovation Talk at Google. » Google’s authentication vs. Microsoft’s Live ID | Digital ID W. Recent announcements of Google's authentication service have prompted comparisons to Passport, and even gotten to Dick Hardt (of "Identity 2.0" fame) to call it the, "deepening of the identity silo. " I'd like to contrast Google's work with Microsoft's recent work around Live ID. Microsoft's Live ID *is* the old Passport -- with a few key changes. Kim Cameron's work around the identity metasystem has driven the concept of InfoCards (now called CardSpace) deep inside of Microsoft.
In essence, Kim's idea is that there is a "metasystem" which utilizes WS-Trust to translate tokens, so that all identity systems can interact with each other. Of extreme importance is the fact that Windows Live ID will support WS-Trust, WS-Federation, CardSpace and ADFS (active directory federation server). Contrast all of this with Google's announcement: create Google account, store user information at Google, get authentication from Google -- are we sensing a trend? Architecture astronauts take over. By Joel Spolsky Thursday, May 01, 2008 It was seven years ago today when everybody was getting excited about Microsoft's bombastic announcement of Hailstorm, promising that "Hailstorm makes the technology in your life work together on your behalf and under your control. " What was it, really? The idea that the future operating system was on the net, on Microsoft's cloud, and you would log onto everything with Windows Passport and all your stuff would be up there.
I tried to coin a term for the kind of people who invented Hailstorm: architecture astronauts. The hallmark of an architecture astronaut is that they don't solve an actual problem... they solve something that appears to be the template of a lot of problems. Follow the story, here. Groove had some early success selling secure networks to the military-industrial complex, but didn't make much of a ripple outside that niche.
And now Ray Ozzie's big achievement arrives and what is it? What's Microsoft Live Mesh? Hmm, let's see. Next: Thanks Microsoft, Hello Google. Thanks to all the fine people at Microsoft. It was an interesting ride. Four years, 11 months, and 20 days, and I enjoyed every one of them. Well, except for the last few days, that was not fun at all. I hope I played a small part in making Microsoft more approachable, friendly to startups, and easier to work with. Microsoft is a different company, a better company, than when I joined 5 years ago. There are more new people who joined Microsoft in the last 5 years than all the previous employees combined.
However, laying off 5,000 people when you have $37B in cash and huge profits is not cool. Mike Arrington at TechCrunch broke the story late Sunday night. Thanks Microsoft, I’m going to Google! Last week started a new personal journey for me. I plan to write extensively and honestly about my experiences in making the transition from Microsoft to Google technologies. Thanks Microsoft Outlook, but I’m going to Gmail. Thanks Microsoft Office Office 2007, but I’m going to Google Docs.