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I highlighted (with more than a little cynicism) Symantec's Security 2.0 vision back in October. Yesterday, at the DEMO conference, the company announced one element of that vision - its Identity Initiative - and demonstrated the Norton Identity Client.

This is good news for those promoting user-centric identity, given Symantec's solid footprint in the consumer space. Symantec claims there will be support for sites enabled for OpenID and CardSpace and I find myself agreeing with Johannes Ernst's analysis:

This is great news for OpenID. Not having seen the product, I'm not sure how great news it is for CardSpace: the press release can be read to say that Symantec's Norton Identity Client will compete with CardSpace for the same place on users' PCs

A quote from Enrique Salem, Group President, Symantec Consumer Business Unit in the press release:

We have a strong base to build from, with almost half of our active Norton user base already enrolled in a basic Norton Account. We’ll enable our millions of customers to extend the functionality of their Norton Account to manage all their information, all in one place.

raises another question in my mind. Is Symantec creating another identity silo? If all of the user information resides in the Nortan Account how does that relate to other identity providers? Hopefully that will come to light as the Identity Initiative rolls out in the next 12-24 months.

Posted by nmacehiter in Identity Management |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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