Sometimes I think I'm fairly bright, and sometimes I think I'm not so fairly bright, and every time I try to figure out what problem federated identity networks are solving, I feel not so bright. Ping ID just got five million clams from Jeremy Allaire via General Catalyst Partners (or maybe that's GCP via jeremy allaire), so there's probably something important happening here. I definitely "get" what a federated identity network is, but I don't get why I need one. MAYBE if it's a replacement for reputation networks like Ebay's that are easily defrauded I could see where this is going, but Ping seems to talk more about crossing organizational boundaries in some defined and rule-based way. So, like, this is all about web services access rights within temporary or virtual organizations? I'm missing something. I hate when I don't get it. Anybody?
Posted by Dick at November 11, 2003 10:18 AM | TrackBackSteve points out that this sounds a lot like what Microsoft tried to with Passport. Remember when passport was going to change the way people interacted with commerce and community? It doesn't seem to have gone the way they thought. So, yeah, hmmmm....be interesting to watch what happens with PingID; I'm not sure this is the problem people think it is, but i'm also not stupid enough to ignore Jeremy Allaire.
Posted by: dick at November 11, 2003 11:08 AM