Microsoft: Future for Active Directory is as identity provider

Microsoft Tuesday laid out a vision for Active Directory in which it will take on a major role in pushing out user identity data to applications and securing collaboration between users.

“We are moving from being a directory provider to an identity provider,” said Stuart Kwan, director of program management for identity and access at Microsoft, during the second day keynote at the annual NetPro Directory Experts Conference.

He said the benefit for corporate users would be a standard user access mechanism that would benefit application development, access management and allow companies to more easily spread their identity systems.

Full story.