Microsoft released on Monday its first beta versions of three developer technologies that will underlie the development platform
for its forthcoming Longhorn Windows update.
Included in the Beta 1 package are Microsoft's new presentation subsystem, code named Avalon; its Web services-based communication
subsystem, code named Indigo; and a new technology for end-user identity management called InfoCard. The beta software is
available on Microsoft's Web site.
Microsoft has been speaking with developers for years about Indigo and Avalon, but InfoCard is a newer technology that developed
more stealthily. Similar to Microsoft's floundering Passport identification system, InfoCard is an attempt to solve the problem
of proliferating digital services requiring users to log in. Unlike the proprietary Passport, however, InfoCard is based on
the developing WS-* stack of interoperability standards that Microsoft played a major role in drafting. While supported by
a number of major vendors, the WS-* standards face competition in some areas from the Liberty Alliance, which Microsoft has
staunchly resisted joining.
Microsoft envisions InfoCards as a way for consumers to manage their digital identities through Windows, allowing them to
choose which online applications and services will be granted access to their identity information without requiring that
information to be re-entered individually at each Web site.
Avalon and Indigo are part of Microsoft's WinFX programming model, the next evolution of its .Net Framework. WinFX is part
of Microsoft's push toward a "managed code" model, in which a CLR (common language runtime) handles some software execution
tasks such as memory management and security checks. Microsoft hopes that managed code will make its easier for developers
to build Windows applications, while also alleviating problems like memory leaks and buffer overruns.
WinFX is intended as the development foundation for Longhorn, due in 2006, but Microsoft is also making the technology available
on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft has previously offered pre-beta "technology previews" of Indigo and Avalon. Feedback from those tests has been incorporated
into the new beta versions, the company said.
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