"What this project lacks in market share and brand
awareness (not to mention Passport's baked-in support with every
new copy of Windows XP), it makes up for in PR. "Liberty Alliance
Project charter members currently represent over a billion network
identities", the same home page claims.
The unveiling of this project attracted relatively little notice
back in October, but at that time AOL still wasn't involved. Now it
is.
Of course this plays into the natural tendency of press folks to
enter war coverage mode. Suddenly it's AOL vs. Microsoft again.
But is it really? Do we need yet another alliance to save us
from yet another Microsoft intermediation play? Is the Liberty
Alliance yet another monolithic solution to yet another monolithic
problem? And do our federated selves really sense any of this is a
huge problem (including our lack of individual federation)?"
