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 NEWSAOL to compete with Microsoft on single sign-on services By Jennifer Jones and Tom Sullivan July 27, 2001 3:53 pm PT ENTERPRISES IN THE habit of shrugging off AOL Time Warner as a content provider geared solely at consumers may be giving the behemoth a second look in the wake of reports that the company is developing a subscriber sign-on service akin to Microsoft's Passport.
AOL is honing an "identity" service that would once again pit the company squarely against Microsoft, according to Reuters news service. According to Enderle, there have been clear indications for some time that AOL, possibly in conjunction with Sun, is headed in that direction. The idea behind AOL's sign-on service would be to work around Microsoft in efforts to provide e-commerce infrastructures and Web services. "This would remove their dependency on Microsoft, which AOL definitely views as a barrier," he said. Peter Urban, an analyst at Boston-based AMR Research, said that AOL's entrance into single sign-on is good for consumers. "AOL is one of the few companies that can effectively compete with Microsoft," he said. Urban pointed to AOL's large installed base as well as its deep pockets in light of the merger with Time Warner. The question, however, Urban continued, is whether AOL can translate its consumer-oriented offerings toward the enterprise. "On the consumer side, AOL can definitely compete with Microsoft," Urban said. Microsoft's Passport, which has about 160 million users, is a single sign-on system that gives users access to a variety of services and Web sites with just one password. Passport will become a central feature of the upcoming Hailstorm system and is a main component of Microsoft's .NET initiative. User information stored by Passport includes name, address, age, phone number, e-mail address, and preferences. Passport also includes payment information for online transactions. For those reasons and others, the Passport service recently came under fire from the privacy community. "The questions now are, how widespread will Passport be and what kind of information will be collected?" said Ari Schwartz, policy analyst for Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Schwarz said that CDT and other groups are unconcerned about log-in services for a single Web site, but are skeptical when such devices are used across Web sites and are tied to personal information. Ultimately, the concern among privacy advocates is that Passport and its reported AOL equivalent could amount to "Internet identity schemes," said Schwarz. Vendors also seem to be monitoring sign-on service developments. "Everybody talks about .NET being platform-agnostic, but I think a lot of people will be paying attention to Passport to make sure it doesn't bring them back to being trapped into Windows," said Chip Martin, a product manager at Bowstreet, in Lynnfield, Mass. Bowstreet offers platform- and vendor-neutral Web services-enabling software. Martin added that if Passport and some of the associated services, such as HailStorm, require Windows to get the full experience, the cross-platform promise may not live up to its billing. Instead, customers may find themselves forced to use Windows so they can take advantage of all the features and functions. Jennifer Jones is an InfoWorld senior editor. Sam Costello a Boston-based correspondent for the IDG News Service.  RELATED SUBJECTS  Business NewsSPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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