Microsoft to open Passport to rivals

NEW YORK: Microsoft Corp is modifying plans for its Passport service,

inviting rivals and other companies to create a common way to use a single user

name and password at sites across the Internet, the Wall Street Journal reported

in its online edition on Thursday.

The software company's plan was designed to meet potential objections from

users and partners, some of whom have raised privacy concerns about Microsoft or

any other organization creating one vast repository of customer information, the

report said.

Passport, a critical part of Microsoft's Internet strategy, was developed to

allow users to be able to log on just once and get access to multiple Microsoft

Web sites and those of other companies that sign up for its service. It already

claims some 165 million separate accounts, and more are expected to be created

as the new Windows XP operating system prompts users to sign up, the article

said.

Under the new strategy, to be formally announced Thursday, Microsoft plans to

base the next version of Passport on a technology called Kerberos and encourage

other companies to do the same.

By using compatible technology, Microsoft officials say, other Web sites or

rivals such as AOL Time Warner Inc could set up Passport-like services of their

own that work together like networks of bank automated-teller machines.

A user might store their password with a service run by AOL, for example, and

get access to Microsoft's sites, or vice versa.

But the initiative is bound to generate considerable skepticism, according to

the newspaper, in part because Microsoft has in the past been accused by rivals

and some privacy groups of making additions to the Kerberos technology to make

it harder for companies to use non-Microsoft software.

Passport is a foundation for an additional set of Microsoft services known as

Hailstorm, the report said. The company Thursday also plans to formally rename

those initiatives ".NET My Services," reflecting the company's broad

Internet strategy, called Microsoft.NET, said Bob Muglia, a Microsoft group

vice-president.

AOL has been working on a Passport competitor dubbed "Magic

Carpet." Muglia described the new plan as "an invitation to AOL to

inter-operate." An AOL spokesman said in the article that the company plans

to study the proposal before commenting.

But Theodore Ts'o, former team leader for Kerberos development at MIT and now

an industry consultant, complained in the article that Microsoft has in the past

added extensions to Kerberos that either prevent the use of competing server

software or make Microsoft software work better.

Muglia, however, said those proprietary extensions aren't involved in the

log-on process, and said any software that adopts standard elements of Kerberos

will work with the authentication scheme.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.