Posted 8:19 AM

Andre does it again!

One thing you can say about Ping ID's Andre Durand - he never let's grass grow under his feet. While the rest of the world debates about converging OpenID and CardSpace, Ping did something about it ("PingID unveils online identity service") by releasing a beta OpenID provider (OP) at signon.com which allows users to link their personal information cards, such as Windows Cardspace or Novell’s Identity Selector, to the OpenID identifier and do single signon to any OpenID accepting site.

Currently only self-issued iCards are supported, but Durand indicates that managed cards will be handled in an upcoming release.

Durand's company was one of the first to market with a federation server, and was first to offer support for both the Liberty Alliance specification as well as the WS-Federation spec with the PingFederate service. Looks like they've stolen a march on the rest of the industry once again...