AOL Pulls Rug From Under 'Magic Carpet'
BetaNews | at | by Mike
After coming to a crescendo as key player in Liberty Alliance, AOL has disbanded the Magic Carpet product team and refocused limited resources on its core subscription and advertising businesses. This leaves the Internet giant with no viable alternative to Microsoft's Passport authentication service in implementation, which currently boasts 200 million accounts. Magic Carpet was a unified single sign-on similar in concept to Passport.
AOL has faced intense pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commissions, as well as a reshuffling of its top executives. After the fallout hit from the reorganization, Magic Carpet was not the hand of choice, according to the CEO of a Liberty Alliance affiliate who wishes to remain anonymous.