Microsoft Loses Passport 271
nikkoslack copies and pastes: "Microsoft is abandoning one of its most controversial attempts to dominate the Internet after rival companies banded together to oppose it and consumers failed to embrace it. The Redmond software company said Wednesday it would stop trying to persuade Web sites to use its Passport service, which stores consumers' credit-card and other information as Internet users surf from place to place."
no trust... no passport (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the reason that the passport system failed. The general computer using public is not
really tech-knowledgable... however, they do know that credit card numbers are to be protected.
(Of course, they don't realize that all of this spyware s!ht they have installed could
grab their numbers just as easily.)
Hopefully, Microsoft will turn off [tech-recipes.com]
that damn reminder balloon now.
Passport's failure (Score:5, Insightful)
A few years down the line ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will embrace the Libery Alliance's Passport service. Windows users will embrace it too because it will be ported into the kernel.
Few years later, Microsoft will modify the protocol to extend it, adding their own proprietary features. Windows users have no choice but to embrace it.
Microsoft will then lock out competitors from using their new version of Passport. They might even patent parts of it. In the end they will end up dominating the Passport buisness anyways.
Re:no trust... no passport (Score:5, Insightful)
Your logic kind of cancels itself out. You are correct that the bulk of the public isn't tech-knowledgable -- and so I'd say that it's safe to say that they didn't avoid Microsoft's Passport for security reasons.
(after all, do they avoid Microsoft's OSes for security reasons?)
Passport mostly failed because those masses didn't "get it" and didn't care to.
Re:Passport's failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Kierthos
MS Shot Self in Foot (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody takes them seriously as far as security goes. Just reading the headlines for a day would make that abundantly clear.
Perhaps a competitor will come out with a clean record and a compelling product, but in this area it isn't going to be Microsoft, if anyone.
A better system would be... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lost the battle, but war is not over (Score:5, Insightful)
But they are not done...Total domination takes time.. They learned that lesson with java and the web in general...
Re:Passport's failure (Score:2, Insightful)
The most common reply was "Oh. I never thought of that."
I don't know that I necessarily believe that Microsoft has never been concerned about security. I just don't think that they ever gave it a priority until recently.
Personally, I think that the reason why it failed was more that peole just don't trust storing such critical information in a single place. Convenience is fine, but the increase in Internet fraud, phishing, viruses/virii, and the like are increasing andmore importantly are being reported to the public. Let's not forget the frequent reports of how some major network site comewhere was broken into.
I agree that rival companies banding together was not relevant. I think that Passport's demise is due more and more news about the lack of security in Microsoft products and on the web in general. I find it difficult to believe that any kind of Passport-like service would work any time soon.
Noble cause (Score:5, Insightful)
I still think the idea is valid, but the implementation and execution, in true MS form, left a lot to be desired.
One login is easy for identity theft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine the work you need to pick up the pieces, this after all the work you need to make sure that the theft's impact remains small...
People that buy in on a single net identity are not so smart it seems...
Re:Downfall? (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth is that it failed long ago and it just took this long for it to swing around. As for the rest? I've been hearing for years and years how Linux and open source was going to crush MS to a pulp. At the current pace it'll happen right around the year 2112.
And I'm not being trollish. Let's at least accept the fact that when you're in a biased community like Slashdot you're going to see things with a heavy slant. Joe Sixpack STILL hasn't embraced open source, cares little about it and is even less inclined to learning a new OS, free or not. Not to even factor in the school system. Once I see a serious move to Linux in accessible schools like state universities, community colleges and the free public schooling system maybe there will be something there.
Re:Misconceptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no trust... no passport (Score:5, Insightful)
1. monopoly - nobody wants to give all their id's to one company to control
2. lack of understanding - why do I need one company to have my login and password to use on all these sites when I, Joe Average, already use the same login and password on all these sites?
3. security - Seriously, would you trust them with your login, pass, personal info and credit card information when they have had such a flawless run on security?
Because of one of those three things (or a combination thereof), it failed. These are (oddly enough) the same stumbling blocks that continue to stump them with all product releases. In some ways, it would have been in Microsoft's best interest's to split the company either via the courts or themselves; in that sense, the baggage of the company would not follow every product. By splitting the company, the could effectively put a new face behind each branch and each child company would have a chance to remarket themselves and their products.
On a negative, this would make it so that they would then have to compete more fairly in an open market and thus would cost them a share. It's give and take and right now no matter how you cut it microsoft loses.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lost the battle, but war is not over (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cannot trust Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
What does the link have to do with the subject?
And viruses and trojans have existed before MS and the will long after. Its a computer systems issue not an MS one.
Why I think it failed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:no trust... no passport (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich
Re:Passport's failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you even look at the advertisements that are put in your way on the way to whatever article is the reference in a Slashdot story? When was the last time you paid attention to a commercial on TV?
Yes, it wasn't trusted by people. Yes, it wasn't trusted by web-site based businesses. But even with SP2, XP still has security holes. And there are a number of problems with Word, Powerpoint, and every other Microsoft product. And yet people use and trust those products to do what they are supposed to. Because they were marketed correctly. Passport wasn't marketed correctly. It was barely marketed at all.
Kierthos
Another take on why it failed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Myself, my father, my mother all had to go through the same thing. "Please create a passport" "OK, wtf is a passport and why do I want it?" *click* (lots of marketing mumbo jumbo that Joe Average has to make an effort to read (a big no-no). *click "later" or whatever*
Next reboot "Please create a passport!!11one!" - at this point you start to get mildly irritated. "I told you last time - now if I find I have the need for a Passport I'll come get one! Go away!"
Next reboot "Please create a passport OR ELSE!!!" - now you start to get pissed off. Stop nagging, I hate things that nag especially computers, go-the-heck-away. Now you make a conscious effort to *avoid* learning about Passport. This is where MS go wrong. What they should have done is made it so that you *want* to learn about Passport - not so that you hate it so much before you even know what it does that you never want to see it again.
Next reboot - "Your desktop is untidy. Clean it up please" - at this point you either a) Bend over and do what it says, b) Go to a tech tip site and learn how to turn *off* all the stupid naggy things that try to tell you want to do, c) Format and install Linux or d) Put the Dell in the bin and buy a Mac.
I seriously hope when Longhorn comes out they look at some of the simple Human-Computer Interaction guidelines like "don't try to make the computer (sorry I forgot the word... androsomething... where it acts like a human)" and "don't nag". Nagging = bad impression of product.
Re:A few years down the line ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So was Java...
Re:No Successful MS Innovations... (Score:2, Insightful)
* Passport - Yep, you got that one right. It tanked not because it was a bad idea, but because it was executed horribly bad. Be that as it may, your right, it failed. You are 1 for 1.
* Active Directory - Not even close to a failure. No, it's not the basis for every network as I'm sure they wanted, but it is used, and used with great success generally, in MS shops around the world. You can hate it, you can say some people have trouble with it, you can point out all sorts of problems if you want, but to say it tanked is flat-out not consistent with reality. You are 1 for 2.
* XBox. Failure?!? It's #2 behind only PS/2, which had a MASSIVE head-start as well as building on a previous winner, PS/1. Again, you can point out all the negatives you want, and I'd even agree with many, but saying it tanked is not even remotely close. Just because it doesn't rule the world doesn't make it a failure by any stretch. You are 1 for 3.
* MSN 'google search engine - Well, seeing as how it's only come into existence in the last month or so (and isn't it still in beta anyway??), saying it tanked is very premature. I suspect it WILL tank, but you cannot in fairness call it a failure yet. You are 1 for 4, with the possibility of being 2 for 4 down the road.
* IE tanked? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SMOKING?!? Yes, Firefox is coming on strong, and we can post all the problems with IE ad nauseum, but calling something that STILL holds a 90% share of the market is not tanking my friend. As a matter of fact, it's an unqualified success, putting aside how it got there anyway. You are 1 for 5.
* Recently acquired AV software - Now your post is bordering on the absurd. No, I take that back... You aren't bordering anything, you are firmly on the absurd side of the fence. How can something they acquired in the last two months be a failure already? They haven't even put out an MS-branded version yet! Give me a break guy. 1 for 6.
I won't argue with your comment about them purchasing most of their products. That's pretty much fact, very little of what they do is actually original or home-grown. But innovative doesn't mearly mean what you create yourself. You can hate MS and Windows all you want, and I'd join you in most of it, but you cannot deny the impact their products have had on the world. We can argue how things might have turned out had Apple and/or others been leading the way, but all we know for sure is how things DID turn out. Microsoft has pretty much single-handedly brought computers to the masses, and if you can't see that and give them credit at least for that you are insanely diluted.
Believe me, I'm not defending them. There's PLENTY to hammer them for. But without Windows, 75% of the "computing public" as we know it today wouldn't be able to use a computer. You may argue whether that's a good thing or not, but to say it's not is frankly wrong, end of story. And if you want to say someone else would have done what they did and probably better, again, you may be completely right, but we'll never know, we only know for sure what actually is, and that's Microsoft and Windows. It was their innovation, whatever meaning someone chooses to ascribe that word in this case, that got us here. Maybe it is time to go another direction, but let's not credit them for where we are at the same time we chastise them for the very same thing!
Re:A few years down the line ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Since when does M$ obey laws, regulations? XML anyone?
What does this prove? (Score:3, Insightful)
We tend to discount it now because it's been a couple of years, and Passport's decline has been long and slow, but we were all scared, once, of Passport and what it might mean for the web, with Microsoft's marketing might behind it, with managers' inflated opinion of MS and tendency to give them a pass to do whatever the hell they wanted with their computers.
There's a tendency to view Microsoft as an unstoppable juggernaut, and this opinion is somewhat self-fulfilling. We percieve them as unstoppable, so why bother trying to resist? They may have the occaisional Microsoft Bob, after all, but... look at Windows!
Microsoft loses more battles than you'd think, that's my only point.