Business has always been about creating relationships with various communities and it is widely appreciated that that customer relationships are one of the most valuable asset in business. Character of relationships has, however, changed.

First, the relationships span beyond the enterprise boundary and form the basis of extended business processes that connect the enterprise with the wider business ecosystem. Second, their nature is becoming more dynamic and often of an ad-hoc character, which reflects the nature of dynamic business models. Thus to be successful, businesses today must maintain a network of dynamic relationships between customer, supplier, partner and employee communities. Third, the number of relationships is much bigger than anytime in the past.

Since these changes are being enabled by technology, IT infrastructure to support these requirements is an important factor for execution of business strategy.

10:47:44 PM    

"The computer industry's *big question* today is "how do we de-centralize applications without losing control of security and privacy?" and the related question of "how can we manage the exponentially growing complexity of computer systems and software as our user base roams beyond the firewall?"

What is becoming clear is that the answer lies in Identity-Centric computing, and the design and build-out of a Digital Identity Infrastructure. Once again existing dominant companies are panicked and some will die while the answer is sorted out. And once again, new un-heard of companies will develop dominant positions around dealing with these questions." [DIW]

I agree and at the same time I don't agree. I agree that identity infrastructure is the necessary condition for the decentralisation to work and as such it will be the criteria to sort out future winners. This, however, applies only to infrastructure. And that's the problem. People do not pay for the infrastructure, they pay to get their job done or to get it done better.

People do not buy infrastructure, they buy applications.

And digital identity infrastructure is an infrastructure, infrastructure to ship identificators and some personal meta-data. In this respect, client-server, peer to peer or identity-based are all the same - without meaningful applications they are useless. They may be important for IT-minded people such as me or Phil, but it is good not to forget that all of them are a means to an end, not the end itself.

Therefore, I would say that talking about move from "The Application is Center" to "Identity is Center" is a bit audacious.

8:29:36 PM    

Andre is contemplating reputation as a part of one's identity:

"While reputations have historically been somewhat vague and subjective, in the digital world they are likely to become more objective, binary and long-lasting (all the more reason to take them seriously). Biologically, time is a built-in eraser, allowing us to forget and move on. In the digital world however, where memory is cheap and caching the norm, our reputations are likely to become more persistent, at least in the areas in which the law has not intervened (e.g. driving tickets are erased every three years and bad credit every seven).

Probably more important, in the digital world, our various reputations which are today disconnected are likely to become more connected. If not by us, then by others. "

Unlike in the physical world, cyberspace is currently designed in such a manner that our trails (what we say and what others say about us) don't wash away during the time. That has several implications some of which are that digital world is much more unforgiving to the mistakes and its inhabitants and visitors have broad opporunities to nose into our private space.

This could be resolved by using anonymous, pseudonymous identification or time-triggered destruction of data where appropriate. Unfortunately, these solutions are this is an issue that is technically hard and are awfully political.

7:42:25 PM    

"Quadrasis, a business unit of Hitachi, introduced a developer tool for building SAML support into connectors that work with its Security Unifier. The product is similar to enterprise application integration software in that it provides a routing and transformation hub and a set of connectors that allow disparate security systems such as authentication systems, single sign-on software and encryption products to work together."

[NWFusion through DI]

10:08:54 AM