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.