NOSes /

Microsoft's Hailstorm trickles down

By Dave Kearns
Network World Directories Newsletter, 04/24/02

A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that Microsoft was quietly abandoning its consumer information service called " .Net MyServices " (but still best known by its original code name of " Hailstorm " ). This was to be a central repository for a person's digital persona, easing access to online purchasing and personalization.

Hailstorm looked like a directory, acted like a directory and sounded like a directory - but wasn't based on either Microsoft's Active Directory or its acquired Zoomit directory technology. In fact (see: " A Hailstorm is coming " www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/nt/2001/00592581.html) Microsoft never used the word " directory " when talking about the technology (see: " Ignorance, not Malice " www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/nt/2001/00619300.html - about why it never used the " d " word).

Hailstorm/MyServices, though, was doomed from the start - and Microsoft's plans for it put the nail in the coffin. No one believed that Microsoft could keep users' data secure. No one believed that Microsoft wouldn't misuse that data. And Microsoft compounded its problems by insisting on a subscription model of payment for users and vendors making use of MyServices.

Microsoft claims it will reposition the products and sell them as a shrink-wrapped offering to companies wishing to use the technology to track their own extranet users - which users are probably doing with a directory right now.

Sun and 100 software midgets launched what was called - with bombastic pride - the " Liberty Alliance " (www.projectliberty.org), which would supposedly do everything that MyServices would with one big exception: it wouldn't be owned by Microsoft.

Since Liberty Alliance has issued four press releases, each touting a new member of the group. As far as I can tell, the membership has never met face-to-face, has never proposed or discussed any technology and exists essentially as names on letterhead. Expect this turkey to go belly up sometime soon.

MyServices was a very good idea but one that was not implemented very well and (surprisingly for Microsoft) was not marketed at all. The product - even most of the technology - is something we can do without. However the idea - the ability for individuals to safely gather together their identity information and share it with a great deal of granularity on a case-by-case basis, from any platform connected to the Internet - is something we should try hard to preserve.

This isn't something that should be controlled by any commercial vendor. It needs well-defined standards and control by a disinterested organization in order to be accepted by users and by vendors.

Next issue, a proposal on how that might work.