Tech Update: While we're talking about who's joining what, what are your thoughts on Passport and Liberty? For a company of IBM's size and importance not to have an opinion on it …
Mills: We have a very strong opinion on this subject. We know what end point we're seeking here--an open structure for identification and authentication so that client devices of various kinds can easily be identified and that the users of those devices can have an open identity structure and anybody and any device can authenticate to any server.
So this becomes an any-to-any model, not dissimilar to other standard structures that you'd like to see emerge in the marketplace. We do not want a proprietary mechanism where you get a tight link, where this device must authenticate to this server and only this server or only to this piece of software on the other end. You want an open structure between the devices and the users and the servers and the applications to which they're trying to connect. We think a Web service-based approach is the right way to go here.
Tech Update: So which of the two, Liberty or Passport, do you think leans more in that direction?
sers and the servers and the applications to which they're trying to connect. We think a Web service-based approach is the right way to go here.
Tech Update: So which of the two, Liberty or Passport, do you think leans more in that direction?
Mills: We'll have to see how this evolves here. We know what design is the right design. We know what this should look like. We know what the end result is and what we're seeking. We have a lot of dialogue going here in this space with all the right people.
As you know, we've worked with Microsoft on Web services. We've made announcements over the last couple of years with them. This is a logical element of Web services. So, obviously we're talking to Microsoft extensively on what the Web services interfaces should look like to enable this capability. We're continuing that dialogue, and it's important to us. We think that Microsoft's participation in an open standard is fairly critical here. With so many of the devices enabled to Windows, it's fairly undeniable that you have to have a Windows-based open mechanism to do this.
We also talk to the customers and other vendors that are part of Liberty.
Tech Update: Any upcoming announcements?
Mills: We'll have to see. These things are percolating. Nothing is boiled yet.
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