Ballmer dismisses Sun's Passport rival
C|Net | at | by Mike
Steve Ballmer, outspoken president and chief executive of Microsoft, dismissed rival Sun Microsystems' efforts to compete with his company's Passport identity service as "craziness" built on a "weak foundation." Ballmer was speaking to an industry group Wednesday when he was asked about the Liberty Alliance Project, a service announced by Sun and some 30 partners. Like Passport, it is designed to save and verify people's identities in order to speed up online transactions.
"I think what we announced is right. I think the Sun thing has absolutely no probability of mattering to the world. That's my nonemotional view," Ballmer told a symposium sponsored by Gartner, the information-technology consultant and analyst.