Yahoo! Groups : ms-hailstorm Messages (membership required) : By: Jacob Levy – Microsoft Passport & HailStorm. All users of the various Win32 OSes will automatically plug in to their HailStorm scheme. Scoble said something about WinMX users not being able to get on the 'net without first signing in. Of course as a side benefit this will also stop software piracy cold.. Great!
[ … ]
The most telling part of this is that none of the protocols are currently open. Of course they've sprinkled some magic fairy dust on the whole business by repeatedly saying the XML and SOAP buzzwords. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Microsoft to publish the protocol they're implementing between the PassPort server and the American Express payment clearance server, for example. Doesn't matter what its written in, XML and SOAP or ancient greek on papyrus, it's not going to be open.
Methinks its time to move on beyond this venting and think what we're going to do about this. As I said in the start of this thread today, we don't need Microsoft to implement any of this.
Microsoft: “All your data is belong to us.“. (Ed. Ummm… I added the link)