The Liberty Alliance trade group announced several new members Monday, including Oracle and Sharp Laboratories of America. The 3-year-old organization now boasts more than 150 members, with some of the IT industry's top vendors signing on for full participation in recent months, including Intel and Computer Associates.

"The momentum shows that the industry is recognizing the contribution we're making," said Simon Nicholson, chair of the Liberty Alliance's business and marketing group.

The Liberty Alliance develops and promotes open specifications for managing user identities on networks. The group's goal is to enable secure interoperability across heterogeneous systems.

Several companies now release commercial products compliant with the group's framework, though participating service providers are still in the early phases of their deployment plans. To illustrate its progress, the Liberty Alliance is organizing several member demonstrations later this week at the Burton Group's Catalyst conference in San Diego.

Participant Vodafone Group plans to show off a service allowing users to log on to Vodafone's portal Web site, find a photo-printing service and arrange for photos to be printed and shipped. Based on a user's privacy settings, the service will hand various pieces of information to the selected third-party printing company.

That service is one of several Vodafone expects to go live next year, when it rolls out a new set of Web services across its product lines, according to Vodafone senior strategy manager James Vanderbeek.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.