IBM, Harvard linking up to challenge Microsoft

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IBM is joining with Harvard University to create an open-source initiative that could challenge Microsoft's planned InfoCard online identity management system.

IBM is joining with Harvard University to create an open-source initiative that could challenge Microsoft's planned InfoCard online identity management system.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said earlier this month that InfoCard, due for release as part of the new Vista operating system at the end of 2006, would help Internet users store their personal information on smart cards and log onto Web sites without using passwords. Analysts say Microsoft's heft in the industry is likely to make the technology the de facto standard in identity management.

IBM and Harvard's project will create an Internet-wide framework for identity management that they hope would become a true standard. Any company's identity management system, including Microsoft's, could then use that framework, said Tony Nadalin, IBM's chief security architect.

IBM will also use the new framework, code-named Higgins, to create an identity management system, a counterpart to Microsoft's InfoCard, that

would work on Linux computers, he said.

Microsoft's system is not expected to work on the open-source Linux operating system.