The list of companies becoming members of the Liberty Alliance
Project continues to grow.
American Express has been actively taking part in the project since
its inception, but had not yet gone public with its involvement,
said Marge Breya, vice-president of SunOne (Open Network
Environment), one of Sun's divisions taking part in the Liberty
Alliance. Thirteen other member companies are also remaining quiet
about their participation, she added.
The Liberty Alliance Project has surfaced as a rival to Microsoft's
Passport authentication service, the single sign-on technology that
allows subscribers to visit participating Web sites without signing
on to each of those sites.
Microsoft already suggested in September that it would consider
joining the Alliance if the authentication platform it develops is
based on an open standard.
Breya said Microsoft reaffirmed that stance in a conversation she
had on 3 December with Charles Fitzgerald, the director of business
strategy for Microsoft's platform strategy group. "He [Fitzgerald]
confirmed that the company was considering membership," she said.
"I really hope they will join."
If Microsoft linked its Passport system with the effort under way
with Liberty Alliance, it would create a vast network of Web sites
and services that would share a common technology for
authenticating users.
Internet giant America Online recently announced that it would take
part in the project, adding its 32m members to the fold.
Adding up the subscribers of each member company, the Liberty
Alliance has more than one billion Internet users who would be able
to travel the Web with a single identity and access Web sites and
services from participating companies, Breya said.
If Microsoft added its Passport system to the group, it would add
about 200 million more users.
Members of the Liberty Alliance have been meeting since 4 December
to discuss the technical and business strategies behind the
project.
No specifications of the shared authentication technology have yet
been announced, and the group is not expected to publicly announce
any details until the middle of 2002, Breya said.
"We do know that it must be a lightweight and pretty simple
technology, so it can be a nice common denominator for all the
members," she said. "It's got to be such that many different
industries from wireless to financial services can make use of it."