eEnvoy lacks faith in Microsoft

Microsoft is facing a setback over the UK Government Gateway project, in the same week that the US restated its condemnation of the company's monopolistic practices.

UK eEnvoy Andrew Pinder told Computing he has all but ruled out using the company's Hailstorm technology to build the infrastructure to deliver online services to citizens and business.

"People expect government to be above suspicion in the way that it protects their information, and we would want to retain control of that. I don't see how that is compatible with the Hailstorm approach," he said.

Hailstorm allows users single sign-on access to web services, and can store information such as credit card details at a Microsoft datacentre.

Failing to win the Gateway project after a long period of close co-operation would be a blow to Microsoft's .Net strategy.

But Microsoft remains bullish after avoiding break-up in the US Court of Appeal last week.