Sun and Microsoft Team Up for New Identity Specifications

HostReview.com
Friday, May 13, 2005; 10:32 AM

In outlining progress between their two companies one year after their landmark agreement, Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy and Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer today announced a series of measures to enhance product interoperability, including the development of new specifications that enable Web single sign-on (SSO) between systems that use Liberty and WS-* Web service architectures.

The measures result from the broad 10-year technical collaboration agreement, announced in April 2004, that set the framework for increased cooperation between the companies to enable their products to work better together.

The chief executive officers noted that over the past year the companies have made considerable progress building a productive work relationship at various levels and setting the foundation for a number of initiatives to address customer interoperability needs.

"Over the past year we have worked to establish great communication at all levels between our companies, from regular executive meetings to in-depth working sessions with our engineers," said Ballmer.

"Sun and Microsoft are working together ... and quite well at that," said McNealy. "A year ago, the skeptics doubted that we could agree on the shape of the table, much less collaborate on solving some of the industry's toughest problems.

The companies noted their strong outreach to customers in developing the relationship as well as identifying key areas and projects. Over the past year, top executives from both companies have spoken regularly to customers to get a better understanding of priorities and concerns.

The companies have jointly developed and published two draft specifications: Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange (Web SSO MEX) Protocol and Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile (Web SSO Interop Profile).

As part of the companies' ongoing commitment to improving interoperability across their respective product lines, Microsoft and Sun also announced plans to support the new specifications within their product portfolios, including Microsoft Windows Server and Sun Java Enterprise System.

Microsoft and Sun welcome participation in the further development of these draft specifications through the Web services protocol workshop process, and ultimately will submit them to a standards organization for finalization and ratification as industry standards.

"The integration of the products of these two companies is critical to General Motors," said Fred Killeen, director of Systems Development and chief technology officer for General Motors Information Systems & Services.

"Finding ways to improve interoperability and reduce overlap between the Liberty Alliance specifications and the WS-* Web services architecture is a primary goal of the Liberty Alliance," said Michael Barrett, vice president, Security Strategy for American Express Co., and president of the Liberty Alliance from 2002 to 2004.
Microsoft and Sun are collaborating on systems management to enable deep interoperability between their operating systems and management products. As part of this effort, the companies are collaborating on the development of the WS-Management a Web services specification, co-authored by Microsoft, Intel, Sun and other vendors, that defines a single protocol to meet management requirements spanning hardware devices, operating systems and applications.