Liberty Alliance gathers momentum

The Liberty Alliance, a 150-strong consortium developing federated identity standards, yesterday demonstrated work in progress, having been further strengthened with the addition of Oracle, Intel, Computer Associates and seven other firms earlier this week.

AOL, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and Trustgenix demonstrated a business-to-consumer scenario using Liberty's specifications to enable a user to authenticate, discover and access a radio service on any device based on the user's identity, without entering additional user names and passwords.

And Vodafone, Nokia and Trustgenix demonstrated a mobile-to-consumer scenario in which a service provider can discover a user's location and respond accordingly.

The event marks the progress made towards the Alliance's goals of reducing the number of names and passwords users require to access websites and intranets, and make e-commerce transactions.

While the Alliance has appealed as an alternative to Microsoft's Passport system since its inception in September 2001, it has recently begun to win support from IT firms such as Intel and Oracle. Hewlett Packard is also a member.

"It was always thought that it would take time for the Liberty Alliance to gain industry support," said Andy Kellet, senior research analyst at Butler Group.

"It gives the Liberty Alliance renewed visibility and highlights a great divide among industry players with Microsoft looking increasingly isolated.

"Microsoft is likely to go its own way for a little while yet, but the consensus is that there will be a coming together eventually."

As sponsor members, Oracle, Intel and Computer Associates will receive access to the latest Liberty technical specifications as well as business and policy guidelines.

"Every wave of new members brings with it additional expertise and market insight that not only benefits new and existing members, but other companies seeking to find solutions to the security and implementation demands inherent in identity management," said Michael Barrett, president of the Liberty Alliance management board, and vice president of privacy and security at American Express.