Thursday, December 13

Great Answer

I asked for a useful scenario for OpenID in the enterprise. Johannes Ernst delivered.

I do think though that while this sounds like a good use-case for some of the underlying technology, it may not contradict what I was thinking. What I was referring to, regarding user-centricity in the enterprise, was the authentication and user information management model that enables people to manage their own information rather than have that information managed by the application owner (think eBay, Amazon, iTunes, etc.). Rather than have each of those companies store information about me, I can own that information and perhaps store it at an identity provider that I choose. This is the model that I believe, while providing tremendous value in the consumer world, may not often translate to the enterprise.

And I agree with Pamela Dingle who wrote:
My advice to Enterprise decision-makers is simple: take the tools and find out if there is a story that those tools can tell that brings value to the organization. If the story is there, adopt the tool. If the story isn’t there, walk away. Whether or not the marketing term applies is, to me, utterly inconsequential.
But as a technologist, I want to understand all the creative uses of technology so that I can recommend the right approach when I speak to companies who are looking to improve their operations. And as an employee of a company that deals with identity audit, I want to get ahead of the curve. If there will be a need to audit the use of technologies in a user-centric model, I want to know what that means.

I'm not trying to make any statements here about what OpenID should or should not be. I'm just trying to understand what the value-proposition would be that would lead an organization to internally adopt a user-centric model.

And a more secure un-spam-able messaging environment sounds like a good start.

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