Should Microsoft own your identity? Clearly, we’re going to say “no”. But think about it: does your airline also provide your passport? Imagine a world where the airline industry told you which airports to use, what destinations were permitted, and when you could travel. They’d also be able to rule out alternative forms of transportation, which limits your flexibility/freedom. I recently wrote about this topic in more detail on our blog. I helped to run a manufacturing company and had to think very seriously about supply chain and the power vendors had over my organization. Here's an excerpt:
"...this blog post isn’t about feature parity or adherence to open standards: it’s about vendor risk and control. If your eyes are as good as mine, Microsoft’s primary motivation seems to be to connect users to other Microsoft products; its identity services are mainly focused on connecting its customers to its products rather than enabling them to easily connect to what they want. That’s not necessarily aligned with the requirements of SMEs, which benefit from shopping around an open marketplace. I was once part owner of a manufacturing company and we had a global network of suppliers to avoid putting our eggs into one basket. Buying 100% of our (fire sprinkler) frames from a single vendor would have given it extraordinary control over price and order size, which would have inevitably led to a significantly more disruptive cost to switch. Diversification helps SMEs manage supply chain (vendor) risk.'
Do you trust Microsoft with your identity?
