https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/01/22/partnering-for-a-path-to-digital-identity/
Somehow a digital identity control built on top of a centralized cloud structure (Azure) from a company that was found guilty of being a monopoly, and is based in the USA under control of Trumpās Justice Department does not inspire me to huge heaps of confidence.
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Couldnāt have put it more succinctly.
This initiative is generating some excitement. This points to the larger ongoing conversation about whether the path to ātech we trustā must run away from the major corporate players that dominate the landscape now, or if they themselves might become part of the transformation we seek. https://www.wired.com/story/refugees-but-on-the-blockchain/amp?__twitter_impression=true
These kinds of announcements always have a question mark for me. I remember too many similar announcements back in the late 90ās and early 00ās where the intent was not āpureā but ultimate manipulation of the market.
I had the same reaction and feeling when Microsoft announced their Hyperledger fabric and all their āopen sourceā DLT offerings.
I guess, proof will be, as they say, in the puddingā¦
Can a tiger change its stripes???
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Well said @michael_shea. Either such things are a defensive play to somehow maintain ācontrolā. Or perhaps, it represents an abdication, a recognition that the playing field is transformed. Perhaps, where one of the ābig 5ā sees their peers in this rarified grouping securing a competitive advantage, they might pursue a completely open and decentralized alternative purely to deposition their immediate competitor. I canāt help but see Appleās relatively recent championing of privacy as a strategic attack on Google / Android first and foremost. I may be wrong / too cyncical, but the outcome matters more than the motivations anyway.
Interestingly, Appleās shots at Google have been going on for at least 3 years now. I distinctly remember Tim Cook taking shots during a WWDC keynote on personal ownership of data.
The key here is Apple is in a fundamentally different business, they want you to buy new hardware, every couple of years. So, there is far less incentive to monetize your data. This theme has been again continued with the HomePod. They seem to have been very deliberate around making sure that PII data is not under their control, and that even the activation of the HomePod does not require the device to ācall homeā first. (A la, it is not in active monitoring mode and streaming audio back to Apple constantly).
I may be naĆÆve , but I feel Appleās game is different.
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