Sun rises on Liberty

NEWS Sun Microsystems has shipped the first products based on the Liberty Alliance specifications for managing consumer identity on the internet. Widely touted as the prime rival to Microsoft's Passport identity and authentication software, the Liberty alliance issued its specifications yesterday. As the dominant player and one of the founding members, Sun is the prime mover in the Liberty Alliance, so its move to support the new specs has been widely anticipated. Sun today unveiled what it claimed was an "end-to-end solution" to address the "needs for heightened security, privacy and federated identity management." The product stack available today includes a Sun One Identity Server, a Sun ONE Directory Server, integration with the Solaris operating system and professional services. Other products, such as portal software, will be integrated at a later date. Directory services player Novell has also announced products based on the specifications.