Kim Cameron's Infocard project

When I finished interviewing Microsoft's Kim Cameron at Digital ID World last week, he thanked me and said "you've got a scoop" regarding the Microsoft Infocard initiative. I didn't set out to accomplish this; I leave scoops to the mostly-younger folks who get paid to dig them up. My role is to dig deeper into technology, drawing on 23+ years of experience in this industry. But ask enough interesting questions and you'll find news. Thanks to Marc Canter for referring me to Kim, after I asked Marc who I should talk with at DIDW. The way I found Kim is important to note, since in the old days Microsoft could be very controlling and was very specific about who got a scoop and who didn't. (I remember a time, pre-blogosphere, when Microsoft could play the trade press like a fiddle, handing out scoops to InfoWorld one week, PC Week the next, which simultaneously pleased and angered editors of each publication.)

It's a much more open world at Microsoft these days, thanks to chief blogger Robert Scoble and his various bosses. I can only guess that Kim talked to me because I expressed sufficient interest in what he's doing, not because Microsoft decided this was the moment to try to pre-announce anything or dominate the conversation around identity. This is just a new Microsoft being more transparent about what they're up to, although they'll certainly still make larger market-freezing statements of direction. This isn't one of them, in my opinion.

Not to say Microsoft is suddenly a tree-hugging company built entirely around open source. But maybe the latter is on its way to happening -- certainly the customer pressure to provide truly open standards keeps building every day.

Appropos of my focus on open standards and open source, I'm now branding each show I produce for IT Conversations under the name Opening Move.