Microsoft's strategy for providing customers with identity management options is increasingly reliant on cloud-based methods of authentication and access control for provisioning of Windows-based mobile devices as well as Apple iOS and Google Android devices.
Microsoft is thinking about buying an Israeli security company that yesterday posted instructions on how to change Active Directory passwords by exploiting a design flaw.
For a self-described "Mac person" working as a technology manager in a college preparatory school that had been a "Mac school" for as long as he could remember, it was a hard thing to have to face but he said it out loud: "<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2009/060309-apple-quiz.html">Apple</a> never took enterprise computing seriously," says a somewhat disillusioned Adam Gerson, co-director of technology at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City.
Likewise Software has released a new version of its open-source authentication software for allowing Linux, Apple Macintosh and commercial Unix-based computers to hook into Microsoft Active Directory controlled servers and networks.
An Australian tech startup has filled a missing piece of the open source Mono .Net application environment by integrating it with Microsoft's Active Directory server.
In the space of a decade, Apple’s iPhone has gone from being a consumer craze to the single product that most affects the design and operation of enterprise IT, turning a controlled, top-down environment into something far more open.