A Web services security specification, introduced this week by IBM and Microsoft, could emerge as a rival to the existing Sun Microsystems-backed Liberty Alliance Project. A group of major players on the Web services landscape, including IBM, Microsoft, BEA Systems, RSA Security and VeriSign, announced the WS-Federation security specification on Tuesday. The specification allows software developers to establish a common way to build Web services that work with a variety of security schemes. The goal is to allow a person to log on to business systems once and gain access to multiple applications. The companies behind the WS-Federation specification said that by using the spec, developers can create "trust relationships" across companies to smooth electronic commerce transactions.
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