Once the Liberty Alliance was formed last fall, Microsoft's Steve Balmer believed that it wouldn't stand a chance against their .Net Passport (formerly known as Microsoft Passport) service. However, Steve Balmer was proven wrong once almost 40 enterprises have joined the Liberty alliance. Some of the big names include AOL Time Warner, BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises), Hewlett Packard, Verisign, and its primary founder, Sun Microsystems. You can view the full membership directory for the Liberty Alliance on their website- below .
Although Microsoft .Net's Passport Directory claims to have over 120 sites, those in the Liberty Alliance are stronger competitors. The AOL Time Warner entry could explain that completely with its 33 million or more subscribers to their ISP and over 40 million using their Netscape web browser! However, the Liberty Alliance only accepts Sponsor entries at this moment, which would cost $30 000 US to sign up and then $120 000 US per year. Hopefully by the end of the first quarter of 2002, one can even apply as an affilate at no charge or as an associate for $1 000 US per year with no sign-up fee. And once that's done, I can personally predict a significant surge in the Liberty Alliance support. So if you thought that Microsoft .Net Passport will just simply cause another monopoly, think again!
View: Liberty Alliance Members List
View: Article @zdnet
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