Identity management is rapidly becoming a new battleground for rivals Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., each of which is committing support for different standards. While Microsoft demonstrated new security and ID management services running together under the WS-Federation (Web Services Federation Language) specification just last week, Sun is planning to announce this week three new identity management products that will compete directly with Microsoft's prized Active Directory.
The moves indicate a growing interest among enterprises to assume more control over their users' personal information and whereabouts. To do it, Sun and Microsoft are expanding their technologies to include added support. Sun's trio of ID management products, due this week, will support the Liberty Alliance Project Phase 2 Specifications and SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language).
News source: eWeek
