Quick on the heels of Yahoo’s game-changing move to support OpenID (with a great consumer-friendly implementation), the big players are all jumping on board. According to TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher:
“Confirming my TechCrunch UK story in early January, Microsoft, Verisign, Google and IBM (I just missed out Microsoft) have all now formally announced they will be joining the OpenID foundation, taking seats as the organization’s first corporate board members.”
As Michael Arrington points out, questions remain, especially whether these big players will be OpenID “relying parties” (let users sign in with any OpenID), or just be in the business of providing OpenIDs to their users.
Plaxo, an early mover in this space, and the only major player out there that is just an OpenID relying partner, certainly welcomes this move. Today, anyone with a Yahoo! account can sign up or sign in with those credentials on Plaxo (with OpenID being used in the background). Soon, we imagine, the list of OpenIDs you can use there will expand to include offerings from Google and Microsoft. Very cool!
The Real McCrea 