* Microsoft’s InfoCard gets help
In a company as large as Microsoft, the comings and goings of employees can often be overlooked. But there were two transactions this month – one coming, one going – that ought to be of interest to the readers of this newsletter.
As you’re reading today, Howard Ting is just settling in as senior product manager for Microsoft’s InfoCard, the new personal identity technology we’ve been taking about quite a bit lately.
Howard goes to Microsoft after a short stint at start-up Identity Engines. Before that, he was the identity point man for RSA Security.
I first met with Howard a bit over a year ago when he did his best to explain to me why RSA should be considered a major player in the identity space. And he was right. He’s a very persuasive speaker.
Given that, and given the reception that InfoCard has gotten (even the open source gurus have allowed that Microsoft might actually be on to something) you can expect the new “identity metasystem” to be at the forefront of identity discussions for the foreseeable future. Pay attention.
At about the same time that Ting was deciding to leave Identity Engines, Sanjay Tandon was packing his bags and headed out the door of Bill Gates & Co. Sanjay had been program manager for Active Directory Security. As one Microsoft MVP (“Most Valuable Professional”) said: “Sanjay was one of the AD Dev Security guys (a PM actually) at Microsoft. He was directly responsible for putting together the AD Delegation Whitepaper that… quite frankly should have been sent along with every copy of Windows 2000 from Day 1.”
The white paper is still extremely relevant. But Tandon had the urge to step out on his own to accomplish his goal, “to make the world a safer place.” He’s going to start with online security, though.
If you browse through his breathtakingly beautiful Web site you’ll hopefully come to realize the passion that’s driving him. One of the last things Sanjay did at Microsoft was to conduct a risk assessment of the company’s security infrastructure and help Microsoft improve its security posture. Since the company runs exclusively on Microsoft products, that was no simple task!
Sanjay Tandon would make a good choice to help you with your next risk assessment. And Howard Ting will be telling you about InfoCard any day now. Both of them deserve your attention.
