The Gartner study estimates there are 50 million registered online authentication users. Gartner concluded that by 2003, the majority of those 50 million users would access, at most, an average of three Web sites a month using the services. Gartner also estimated Passport membership numbers which conflict with Microsoft's own totals. Gartner concluded that there are 25 million Passport users, but only 14 million of those users are aware that they have a Passport account. Microsoft claims it has more than 200 million registered accounts, although the company is quick to add that the total does not necessarily represent active users. Gartner says at least part of the discrepancy in account numbers is due to users with multiple accounts. Individual users sometimes establish separate Passport IDs for Hotmail, MSN Messenger and other services. Microsoft has been aggressively promoting Passport through its own services, and through Windows XP. As a result, Gartner found that the number of Passport users jumped to 14 million from 7 million between last August and February, according to the research group. Microsoft maintains that Passport is extremely popular with consumers and disputes Gartner's estimates. Last week, during the Microsoft antitrust trial, David Cole, vice president of the MSN and Personal Services Group, estimated Passport does 3.5 billion authentications a month. During the continuation of his testimony on Monday, Cole characterised Gartner's estimate of the number of Passport users as "a number of magnitude off." Gartner concluded that, for now, most consumers would use identity and authentication services for signing in to Web sites that require them, but not for making purchases or using Web services. "Consumers aren't totally adverse to these services, but they're way down their list until security and privacy issues are resolved," Litan said. "I don't think people are going to gladly give their information away to use these identity services." For example, Gartner claims that 86 percent of Passport account holders have not used the service's e-wallet service, with more than half citing lack of trust as the main reason. Gartner found that less than 10 percent of online consumers would be willing to exchange personal information in order to use personalised Web services, such as .Net My Services. "People are paranoid; they don't want to give their information away and they have a right to be paranoid," Litan said. "This whole idea of customised, personalised Web services is still a dream, and I don't think consumers are going for it." Adam Sohn, Microsoft's product manager for the .Net Platform Strategy, also disagreed with Gartner's conclusions about the value of identity and authentication services to consumers. "This is an enabling technology. That's what authentication is for," he said. "We think it's necessary in a world where very cool services are built around a user." AOL representatives did not comment on the Gartner study and instead deferred to a Liberty Alliance representative, who agreed that protecting consumer data and winning consumer trust are important. "The vision of the Liberty Alliance is to enable a networked world in which individuals and businesses can more easily conduct transactions while protecting the privacy and security of vital identity information," she said. Another issue hampering adoption is interoperability between competing services. Gartner predicted Microsoft and AOL identity and authentication services, for example, wouldn't interoperate until about 2005. "There won't be anything as single sign-on," Litan said. Instead, "consumers will have more user IDs. They'll have one for Passport, and to get into their bank they'll have to have another or they'll have their AOL ID. It's probably going to make consumers' lives more complicated rather than less complicated," he said. Sohn said Microsoft is committed to interoperability. "We're actually working toward a day where it doesn't matter what authentication service you use," he said. The company has already announced that it will use a security model called Kerberos so Passport can be federated with other authentication systems, much in the same way that automatic teller machines are linked to a network to share banking information. Likewise, the Liberty Alliance representative claimed that organisation was striving for greater interoperability. The "Liberty Alliance is not attempting to compete with or displace other identity products or solutions," said the group's representative. "The goal is to facilitate interoperability between existing and future identity products and solutions." Microsoft has the edge
Microsoft isn't the only company automatically signing up consumers for identity and authentication services, but the software giant's Windows monopoly would be a decisive advantage over competitors. Gartner concluded that as more people switch to Windows XP, Microsoft would gain market share from AOL. Gartner concluded Microsoft will eventually pass AOL in both instant messaging and email account market share. "People are going to go on signing up for Passport," Litan said. "They won't share their personal and financial information, but they won't try to disable Passport either. Microsoft is going to get its way to use Passport to conquer new Web markets." But Sohn faulted Litan's conclusions. "The services in Windows XP that require authentication are Windows Messenger, video and voice chat," he said. "We think these are compelling user-centric Web services, and they need authentication. Given that these are Microsoft services, we use Passport as the authentication solution. None of that prevents a consumer from using other authentication or communications services, and millions do." Even if consumers resisted using Passport e-wallet services for years to come, Microsoft would still benefit greatly from the forced generation of accounts, Litan said. The company that leads the identity race would gain market share in the sale of technology for supporting online infrastructure, gain an edge delivering software services and Web services, command better affiliate deals, garner more advertising revenue, and collect more transactional and billing fees. "That's great for Microsoft, but I don't know about consumers who aren't interested in these identity or authentication services," Litan said.
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