Lots of folks are excited today because Microsoft has announced that Windows Live IDs can now be used as an OpenID. I’m less than thrilled.
As TechCrunch points out, BillG announced support for OpenID as a concept a year and a half ago. Enabling Windows Live as an OpenID provider is a step in the right direction, but it’s the same halfway step that’s been taken by any number of big companies who want to say they’re going to support OpenID. Whether we’re talking about Yahoo/Flickr, AOL, or Google/Blogspot, the companies are quick to jump into the notion of folks using their account as an OpenID, but we have yet to see any real support where I can use an OpenID to authenticate to any of these services.
The Windows Live OpenID experience can be seen in a screencast at Dare Obasanjo’s blog and it appears similar to other OpenID providers. Actual security is provided by a standard username/password (it’s a Live ID) so it’s not as secure as a two-factor system such as Vidoop or VeriSign’s PIP, but that’s not directly an OpenID issue.
Windows Live IDs being OpenIDs is a good thing, but it’s hardly anything exciting or groundbreaking. Users aren’t going to learn about OpenID in any meaningful way. Call me back once a big corporation embraces both sides of supporting OpenID.
[tags]openid, microsoft, pdc, pdc2008, identity, windowslive, liveid[/tags]
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Someone told me that OpenID commenting is broken. Oh my.
I’m testing OpenID commenting on your site, ’cause it’s not working on mine…