Last issue I told you about Microsoft‘s decision to drop the CardSpace system. Today I’d like to quote from two people who have been tightly tied to CardSpace — one inside Microsoft and one outside.
BACKGROUND: CardSpace, we hardly knew ye
First up is Mike Jones, Microsoft’s director of identity partnerships. In talking about CardSpace’s demise, he allowed:
“So with all this support and energy behind Information Cards, why aren’t we on the path to ubiquitous adoption? While there are many reasons, I’ll highlight two, based upon my personal experiences:
• Not solving an immediate perceived problem: In my extensive experience talking with potential adopters, while many/most thought that CardSpace was a good idea, because they didn’t see it solving a top-5 pain point that they were facing at that moment or providing immediate compelling value, they never actually allocated resources to do the adoption at their site.
• Not drop-dead simple to use: Users were often confused by their first encounter with CardSpace; many didn’t succeed at the task at hand. Indeed, many saw it as something complicated getting in the way of what they were actually there to do.
“While are plenty of other reasons that were contributing factors, such as requiring a client that wasn’t ubiquitously available and not having server software available to go with the client, I firmly believe that if people thought that CardSpace would provide immediate compelling value and that it was easy to use, that Information Cards would now be an everyday part of the Internet. Not having achieved those things, we are where we are today.”
Also weighing in is Doc Searls, co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” and leader of the Vendor Relationship Management project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Doc was also a co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop where InfoCards first saw the light of day. He noted:
“What mattered most about CardSpace … was the selector, which was something that the user operated, that was under user control.
“What we (that is, developers) should do now is look at what Microsoft has abandoned, and use what we can of it to do what Microsoft did not, and apparently will not.
“Frankly, for all the great work that Mike [Jones], Kim Cameron and other Microsoft folks did in this space, the biggest problem has always been their employer. While Microsoft deserves credit for giving these good people lots of support and room to move — including open source development, no less — the legacy was always there. Microsoft was a hard company for the rest of the world to trust as a leader in an area that required maximum openness and minimum risk that BigCo moves would be pulled. Which is what Microsoft just did.”
We’ll be watching to see if anyone picks up the torch.
