Microsoft is making some welcome

Microsoft is making some welcome changes to Passport and Hailstorm, the underpinnings of .NET. The changes allow third parties to host Hailstorm data (such as credit-card info and demographics) and to integrate their login systems with Passport. Practically speaking, this is an essential ingredient if Microsoft wants to credibly present themselves as the Internet's P2P plumbers, the people who provide the framework and infrastructure for P2P services to run on top of. While it's true that P2P companies would rather not pay to develop and maintain mundane stuff like login databases and wallets, they also don't want to sign on for a system that is totally at the mercy of one player. By opening up Hailstorm and Passport, Microsoft creates a potential multiplicity of providers, reducing the power they weild over their partners while strengthening their bid to set the standards for providing these services online. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)