Identity space continues to stay hot and actually heat up more.  Over the last several months OpenID was in all the news as Yahoo and seemingly the rest of the world jumped on that bandwagon, or at least said they did.

Last week Microsoft announced their acquisition of Credentica and their technology for bolstering their Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Cardspace initiatives.  If you missed it, I’m not sure how.  Check out these hits to get caught up.  I guess Kim Cameron was serious when he presented at Digital ID World last fall on “Why Claims Will Change Everything” (PDF / MP3).  I certainly believe Ralf Bendrath when he notes that U-Prove technology does more than just strengthen claims, but certainly a quick review of the material shows pretty clearly that “claims are the thing”.

This is an important event in my mind as it shows that Microsoft is paying attention and taking action.  I know that Kim Cameron is influential in the identity community, but I often wonder if his opinions and thought leadership have much sway in Redmond.  Regardless how much the acquisition cost, it was chump change to MS, but at least it shows me they are looking to take Cardspace somewhere as it currently languishes lonely and unused even on my various PCs.

Now today I see that Ping has picked up Sxip.  Not exactly a surprise there.  This is a good fit and while Sxip has some interesting things going for it, I wasn’t seeing much traction in the marketplace.  Ping has real customers and having the Sxip bits rolled into their already strong offering makes perfect sense.
For me the Credentica acquisition is the more momentous of the two by a long shot, but only if MS rapidly moves to make something demonstrably useful out of it in short order.  As an internet user, I’m interested in getting something useful out of this sooner than later and don’t much care whether MS does it in proprietary mode or not.  However, the vendor and industry participant part of me agrees wholeheartedly with those calling for the U-Prove technology to be put in the public domain asap.

Both announcements for me just show that identity is solidly on the front burner and out of the insider-identity-geek-workshop hot-house (not that their stellar work is done by a long shot).  I wish both moves by both companies and all parties involved success in integrating and introducing new and better products.
Now if you all would just please get together something that I can use to actually make my online life more secure and productive, that would be great.  If you are looking for ideas, contact me.  I have several and just so happen to be between jobs <grin>.

P.S.  This was the most interesting bit I took from the Ping / Sxip PR:

• “Based on customer feedback, Ping Identity will leverage Sxip Access’unique features for SaaS such as batch provisioning, Rich Client support for Salesforce desktop plugins, and deep linking.”
• “As the leader in Identity 2.0 technologies, Sxip was the first to develop identity management solutions for SaaS gorillas such as salesforce.com and Google Apps. Selling Sxip Access to Ping strengthens their offering and allows Sxip to focus on providing users with Internet identity solutions such as Sxipper, making the Internet simpler and safer,”said Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxip Identity.”

Originally published March 11, 2008