IBM Joins, Microsoft Snubs Liberty Alliance

IBM announced this week it has joined the Sun-backed Liberty Alliance, which establishes industry standards for identity management. By federating identities, users are able to log in to numerous sites with a single username and password.

IBM previously kept its distance from Liberty, authoring its own WS-Federation standard, but in July signed a $50 million deal with French mobile phone provider Orange PCS that sources say required Liberty compliance. As one of its largest supporters, IBM will also become a member of the Liberty Alliance board.

Support from IBM is seen by industry watchers as critical, with Liberty endeavoring to establish worldwide standards in a fragmented marketplace driven by more by greed than consumer interest. Intel and Oracle signed on last July, and AOL and Vodafone have also pledged support.

But Liberty still has one major roadblock in its way: Microsoft's Passport. Microsoft says it has no plans to join the Liberty Alliance, and has pushed its own federated identity standards proposals. Redmond, however, has recently joined Sun in publishing other Web services specifications including WS-Management and WS-Addressing.