Microsoft to Offer Hailstorm as an Enterprise Software Package
The New York Times reports that Microsoft has "quietly shelved" Hailstorm, its centralized personal identity system that was meant to be a key piece of Internet infrastructure. According to the article, "Microsoft is now considering selling {the Hailstorm technology, now called 'My Services'} to corporations in a traditional package form, rather than as a service. The companies would maintain the data for their own users."
This is a much more acceptable development to Microsoft competitors in the software, internet, and banking industries. Many people in these industries felt that consumer acceptance of a centralized implementation of Hailstorm would have created an insurmountable advantage for Microsoft, both in terms of customer relationship knowledge and the selling of infrastructure software and services for integration purposes.
If Microsoft markets Hailstorm as a traditional Enterprise software package, then companies like Oracle, Sybase, and IBM can offer competing products and services.