Today's Hailstorm announcement was cultivated to gain maximum favourable publicity for Microsoft, but Redmond's concessions amount to nothing it hasn't already conceded, in one form or another. In fact, seasoned watchers including Jeremy Allison - co-lead of the SAMBA project - interpret the "concessions" as extending the requirement for Microsoft's partners to include proprietary technology in their .NET compliant web services. So what was new, today? Microsoft promised to include the 'industry standard' Kerberos 5 protocol in Hailstorm, and HailStorm is now officially monikered ".Net My Services", if you .please. Microsoft also said it would open authentication to third party brokers.
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