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In Part I of Welcome to the Jungle: The Two Sides of eBay, we examined the scope of eBay's market dominance and the realities of running a business on the auction giant's site. This week, we delve deeper into pricing your items to sell, the bidding process, the importance of positive feedback and payment processing.

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar started the site as a means to sell his Pez dispenser collection online. Today, collectibles remain the most popular top-level category on eBay, accounting for 17 percent of all items offered, according to the Auction Software Review. However, Clothing, and Entertainment follow at 11 percent each, with Sports, Home, Jewelry and Watches, Computer and Electronics, Toys and Hobbies and Books all coming in at 5 percent or higher - much of it new, non-collectible merchandise. Bear in mind we are talking percentages of a very large pie. For instance, "Business and Industrial" items garner just one percent of the total items offered on the site, yet, there are over two hundred thousand auctions in this category at any one time.

Given the astronomical amount of items up for auction at any given time, however, there are no guarantees your items will sell.

Auctions: The Dark Side of Paradise

The cold reality is that 53 percent of eBay auctions end without a bid, another 23 percent sell with just a single bid. Re-listed items often sell on the second try; (not all of eBay's users search at one time,) but meanwhile listing fees keep adding up, cutting into profits. Further, with 25 million auctions running, sellers need any edge they can get to make their needles visible in this huge haystack.

A good starting point is research. eBay allows searches of past performance sales in all categories. This the best starting point for establishing the pricing prospects for your merchandise. Further, if you are selling a collectible, eBay has no less than 743 separate collector groups or chat rooms. Under "Buttons and Textiles" for instance, these range from Cutey Pie Threads with one lonesome member, to Button Buddies with 279. By perusing a group you can find what niche collectors are looking for, their complaints, attitudes, and needs before marketing auctions to these target buyers. There are also group forums for selling any imaginable (and some unimaginable,) products, as well as marketing strategies, such as the One Cent Wonder group who glory in starting auctions at one cent. Preliminary research of past sales and within the groups will save time and pay dividends down the road.

Keywords

A majority of buyers find what they are looking for with keyword searches. It is critically important to fill the fifty-five character heading with the proper keywords to attract niche buyers for your item--as well as attract the potential buyers who do serendipitous searches through all the listings. By default, the eBay search is set to the title headline only, but many buyers will turn off the default and search by auction header and item description. So it is important to also pack your description with as many keywords as possible. For instance: if you are selling a signed Mahalia Jackson program from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, you want to feature the word "Brooklyn" in your header and description, since there are many more Brooklyn collectors than gospel singer or Mahalia Jackson devotees.

The Pricing Quandary: The $1 minimum versus retail.

There are two schools of thought regarding opening bid pricing on eBay. Many, perhaps a majority of sellers, will purposely start an item's bidding at a price far below the item's value in order to attract bidders seeking a bargain, and/or (dream of dreams,) engender a bidding war on the item. Sellers that know they are offering a desirable item, realize the item will rise to its price regardless of its dollar stating point. Of course, the downside is that this might not happen - due to sniping software and other factors, and the seller will find his $200 book selling for $4.99. Sellers who have been too often burned by this opt to start the minimum bid at or near a price they are willing to accept. This tends to slow down the bidding but at least guarantees that you do not lose money on the sale of an item that can still be sold for retail in a brick & mortar store or an off-eBay web site. A good rule of thumb is to rely on experience: start out protecting your sales until you feel certain you know the market, then start the sale low and wait.

To Bail Out or Tough It Out

Watching bids accumulate on your auctions is not unlike watching grass grow. Years ago, bidders would plunge into anything they wanted from the opening bell; however, today eBayers are far more savvy: rather than running up the price with early bids, most wait for the last day, frequently the last few minutes, before bidding.

eBay pretty much allows sellers to cancel bids and auctions at any time. Because so much of the action occurs on the last day, this is not a good idea. The seller is better served by making a firm decision on selling before initiating the sale and sticking with it.

To Reserve or not to Reserve

The way the reserve auction works is that the item will not be sold unless the hidden reserve price is reached. eBay charges a fee for reserve auctions; the fee is reimbursed only if the item reaches its reserve. Some sellers who offer high-ticket items use the Reserve Price auction while simultaneously starting the sale with a low minimum bid to attract interest. The problem with this is that reserve auctions tend to turn off bidders who want to know their participating in an absolute sale. Most sellers avoid reserve auctions except with a high ticket item that they feel will reach its reserve, but want insurance in case it does not.

Find the Right Slot.

Selecting the right category to place your auction can make the difference between success and failure. There are hundreds of categories and sub categories on the site; unless the item has a clear cut slot, such as a new digital camera, or a used BMW, the choices can be perplexing. Some sellers use several categories on items of crossover interest, but each extra category doubles the listing fee. It is a good idea to use a hidden counter system that tracks the number of hits on your sale; several hosting services, such as Andale, offer them for free. If you see that your sale is garnering few hits in a certain category, try changing categories. If completely bewildered, run a search for similar items and see where their sellers list them. Auction duration: eBay allows one- , three- , five- , seven- and ten-days auctions. The majority of sales run seven days, with the ten-day sale (which incurs a small extra fee) the second choice. Besides the extra exposure, a ten-day sale allows the seller to show his item over two weekends when buyer activity is at its peak. Start ten day sales between Wednesday and Friday to catch part or all of two weekends.

eBay as a crapshoot

Only a fraction of eBay's 114 million users surf the site at any one time. eBay has its hardcore steady users, but many eBayers surf and buy as time or money allows, and then in fits and spurts of several weeks or months. Routinely, items that fail to attract a bid on the first or even a second try, will sell, sometimes with multiple bids, in the next listing. (From personal experience auctioning used books on eBay, about 40 percent of re-listed items sell on the second try.) eBay sends a re-listing link with your auction result email and will reimburse the re-listing fee if the item sells. But before re-listing an item, consider adjusting the price, description, or category(s) for the second try, and wait a week or longer before re launching the sale in order to attract 'fresh blood' to the audience.

No Surprises

According to WebTrends, 35 percent of U.S. adults say "surprise costs" will lead them to abandon an online sale. eBay buyers resent high shipping charges; it can make the difference between repeat business and never seeing the buyer again. If possible, state the items shipping charge on the sale; in any case, it's better to keep shipping at cost and view the "handling" as part of the price of doing business. The goodwill makes it well worthwhile.

Make Nice

A combative attitude and negative feedbacks are poison on eBay. High maintenance and distrustful bidders come with the territory - seller fraud on the site is such that eBay employs eight hundred people to root it out. There is also the nuclear deterrent Feedback Rating System wherein buyers and sellers rate transactions as "positive," "neutral" or "negative."

Buyers gravitate to sellers with excellent feedback ratings and tend to eschew those with negatives. Most negative feedback is avoidable with good, polite e-mail communication, patience, honest descriptions and timely shipping. It's advisable to avoid handing out negatives loosely as the other party is free to respond in kind. Even with renegers, the seller is better served by claiming a closing fee credit, issuing a bidder "strike" against the reneger (three strikes and the user is kicked off eBay,) and either offering the item to the under bidder or re-listing it rather than issuing a 'negative' which can be reciprocated PayPal In the past, horror stories abounded among sellers who had their funds wrongly frozen, misapplied or lost in PayPal's twilight zone - to the point where a successful class action suit was just concluded against the service. Purchased by eBay several years ago, PayPal has been 'stabilized,' and with 50 million users, it is the benchmark of online payment services.

Considerably more cost efficient than online credit card processing, its convenience makes it the favorite payment method among eBay users. Small to medium auction sellers (several to fifty sales a week,) can expect to lose a few sales for not having PayPal. For larger venders with a hundred or more weekly sales it's a necessity. The service also takes much of the pain out of international sales--which you'll want to consider.

Over There

International buyers are an increasingly large segment of the eBay auction market. Sell internationally. But particularly if you do not offer PayPal, protect your self by using the "Ship to U.S. only" eBay option. Few overseas buyers will be put off by this. If a buyer wants what your selling, they will e-mail to ask if you will ship to a foreign destination, or, just as often, ignore or not even read the terms & bid anyway. In either case, this option gives the seller important leverage: if the buyer refuses the shipping costs, terms, or offers payment that will incur a conversion charge, the seller can cancel the sale without risk of receiving a negative feedback. (eBay removes negative feedbacks placed by international buyers when the sale stated "ship to US only.") International sales require customs forms and usually extra emails, but if you turn away from this market, you will be leaving money on the table.

Jump in

This has been intended as a very general guide to entering the eBay market. There are many other nuances to selling on eBay--depending on the product you sell, your goals, the time you can put into the effort-- that will become apparent with experience. eBay is not for everyone. If you intend to tippy-toe into eBay as a hobby, avocation, or source for side income, it's advised that you begin in the auction format, try it and discover if this venue is your 'cup of tea' before investing the expenditure of time and effort required for establishing a Store. For large volume sellers, segueing into eBay Stores is a natural transition that makes good sense once an auction following has been established. Have fun, make money.

Jan 2005: Stage set for Global Core Banking Competition

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In late 2004, when Misys announced its MidasPlus product, an enhancement of its 20-year old Midas core banking product, the company’s CEO for wholesale banking, Andrew White, claimed to have achieved an edge in the area of “global processing” vis-à-vis its competition – a claim that has been challenged by other core banking stalwarts such as i-flex and Temenos.

“Global processing” – the standardization of processes in a single, central, integrated worldwide system, eliminates duplication of efforts and yet facilitates flexibility in back-office operations. It is today an often-spouted catchphrase among core banking solution providers, hoping to take advantage of the lucrative returns of even a single deal with any international bank.
i-flex responded to Misys’ claim by pointing at its installed base at various international banks like Citibank, Lloyds TSB, Rabobank, UBS and Shinsei Bank. Temenos for its part said it had “years of experience in providing its clients with this competitive advantage” via its TEMENOS GLOBUS and with “the non-stop processing capabilities of TEMENOS 24, our clients can harness the real power of global business.”

Misys plans to upgrade its entire installed base of Midas customers to MidasPlus. Andrew White says: “At some point in the future there will be a point where Midas no longer exists and everything is MidasPlus. MidasPlus is everything about consolidation at the back office, with keeping your front office in separate branches.”

According to Misys, MidasPlus, will allow a bank to consolidate its operations and provide a single view of its global business, across transaction processing, treasury, capital markets, commercial lending, trade finance, payments and retail services.

White compares the previous Midas installation to a hub and spoke situation, where the Midas installations were at the spokes, but “the hub was the country’s home territory and Midas seldom went in there.” The obstacle that Misys encountered was essentially one of consolidation, given different local banking laws and regulations. The MidasPlus product is intended to address this and move into “the centre of large banking operations”.

All three products – Misys’ MidasPlus, Temenos’ T24 and i-flex’s FLEXCUBE tout J2EE support, a Java-based platform used for deploying and managing applications on an enterprise-wide scale – an inevitable criteria of products, the result of banks themselves moving towards J2EE.

Point to Ponder:

1. Where is INFOSYS's Finnacle placed against such biggies ??

2. Three Tiered Service companies like HP,IBM, EDS, Accenture are tier 1 players with TCS having his leg tight in Tier 1 player. Tier 2 vendors are considered Virtusua, INFOSYS, iFlex, Polaris, NIIT etc. and Tier 3 are small scale vendors like iGate, KPIT, MasTek and few such mid cap companies who are suppose to create good pedegree in market by winning big ticket wins.

3. Are this guys right in their approach towards marketplace? I feel few lack their delivery model which are outdated and rigid for marketplace. I feel they need to enhance their service delivery methdology.

4. I feel their is lot to be done by Functional and business analyst stuffing their big brains behind ARmani Suites. They need to take up the global level compliance issues like SOX,Check21 and BASEL II. This compliance are usually expanses and does not show up ROI thus, ignored by banks as well as not on the selling list of these analysts. These analyst are the one who can show them the writing on the wall for loosing competitive advantages in market place. McKinsey and PwC has better capabilities and they can partner with Tier 2 or Tier 3 companies to team up and grab the market together with dual edge sword of Business as well as Technology Excellance ANY TAKERS?????

10 Golden Rules for Online Shopping Players

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Since 1997, e-commerce consultancy the E-Tailing Group has been buying products from 100 web sites a year. The Chicago-based firm records and tabulates the results of its shopping experience, using the data to help them advise clients and set e-commerce benchmarks.

Each year, the firm's so-called "Mystery Shopping" project investigates many aspects of 100 top e-tailers. The sites themselves don't know they're being tested; yet they get a complete diagnostic check-up. "We're just an average customer. We use the shopping cart, we order the product, we e-mail the site, and we return the product," explains Lauren Freedman, the firm's president.

The test e-mail, for instance, discovers how quickly and accurately a site responds to customer queries. The return process, too, is checked for glitches. "We also test live chat — as things evolve on the Net, we add things," Freedman notes.

To take a look at the firm's research, go here.
For example, among the sites put to the test, here what's the company found:

• 93 percent offered free shipping with a price barrier
• 68 percent offered real-time inventory updates
• 70 percent answered their e-mail correctly
• 16 percent required authorization for a return
• 8 percent offered the capability to shop in a second language
  

(Final results for the 2004 holiday season will be posted by the end of January.)

Above was the statstical observation, on top of it, analyst came up with fantastic guidelines which is published as "10 golden Rules for Online Shopping players".

It's result of the experiences, they had of purchasing hundreds of products online and visting the sites and recording the interaction experience.

Visit for the complete coverage of these golder Rules.

BEFORE Visiting above why don't you drop valuable comment.

The anti-money laundering dilemma

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While fraudsters and money laun-derers have been innovative in adapting their techniques over the years, the technology approaches by banks have unfortunately not been as innovative. These approaches have often been limited to manual inspection of records or programming systems to flag out transactions above a certain amount - a fact borne out during interviews with regional banks.

For example, the IT head of a tier 1 bank in Taiwan concedes: “We don’t check the background of our individuals. We write programs as part of our core banking applications to flag out transactions above one million NT and above, and also to calculate if the sum of transactions are over one million NT and we report such instances to our HQ and financial department."

The IT head added that its current monitoring primarily focused on transaction amounts and suspicious individuals. The bank revealed that its applications for monitoring are primarily in-house developed.

Expectably, the global banks seem to be more diligent in this area, thanks to their more global nature of their risk exposure. HSBC Brunei’s manager for technical services, Silvia Chong highlighted that the bank utilizes a mix of in-house developed and third party applications. She emphasizes that technology plays a critical role in it: “Technology does help a lot – because we have automated systems to filter out (irrelevant) information and highlight the required information that we want to see.”

Chong revealed that besides transaction amounts, frequencies and monitoring against a list of suspicious individuals, HSBC’s methods also included monitoring transactions from high-risk countries and classifying customers.

An ROI question
One solution provider expressed a fundamental dilemma impeding banks: “When you have projects like CRM, which deliver returns on investment…. if the regulators are not going to penalize you (for system deficiencies in detecting laundering), you won’t rush off to do compliance first.”

"No country wants to be known as the country to launder money."

- Clare Hart, Factiva's president & CEO

This individual pointed out that with many of the money laundering scandals across Asia, the focus had often been on catching and punishing the money launderer himself, rather than turning a critical eye on the systems and infrastructures in place at target banks.

However, the increasing occurrence of money laundering, regulatory push in the form of the Patriot Act and Sarbanes-Oxley and the huge cost of reputation risk in the face of banks’ efforts to IPO are pressuring Asia financial institutions to accumulate data on suspicious individuals and transactions more judiciously. Organisations such as World-Check and Factiva are seizing the opportunities here. Both organizations provide profiles of high risk and potential high risk persons, such as politicians, terrorists, and other individuals linked to fraud, organized crime and laundering.

Factiva’s CEO Clare Hart says: “No country wants to be known as the country to launder money. Let’s face it, because there are too many risks associated with that from an investment perspective. I think the regulatory environment has actually helped us quite a bit with. Bad behaviour is really helping us.”

Factiva leverages its archives of news reports, to provide a product called ‘public figures and associates’, a database which the company claims includes 350,000 politically exposed persons, and a further 100,000 of their relatives, friends or close aides. The database also includes a black list of 4,600 individuals that financial institutions are barred from doing business with, under the advice of national regulators or international bodies.

According to Hart, “Public figures and associates was in direct response to European banks coming to Factiva, who already had strong relationships with us… these bankers came to Factiva because for compliance purposes, they needed to have database of information about people, and at one point, they were looking at building their own database amongst themselves and decided that this (public figures and associates) fits right into their strategies.”

Asia’s track record
Asian banks are under the spotlight today. Three out of the six “non-cooperative countries and territories” identified by Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body against money laundering and terrorist financing, are in Asia – Indonesia, Philippines and Myanmar. Generally, Asian banks have not had a good track record in money laundering, thanks in part to the fact that they have not faced the same sanctions as European and North American banks do for negligence in this area.

"Software solutions must be one step ahead of the evolving techniques that money launderers use.

However, Simon Alterman, vice-president of content for information company Factiva, believes that this is changing: “Over the last year or so there has been a real change of pace in the Asia Pacific region as far as compliance issues are concerned… when we started to do this years ago, it was almost impossible to get their attention.”

Staying one step ahead
However, Leong Mun Tong, Asia Pacific sales director for financial services at Mantas, which specializes in behaviour detection software, says that many monitoring systems across banks in the region continue to utilize a rule-based approach, engineered to detect actual fraud rather than suspicious patterns of behaviour.
He adds: “Neither viral or money laundering pattern is static. The money launderer is going to get smarter and smarter to avoid detection. So, software solutions must be one step ahead of the evolving techniques that money launderers use.”
Yet another challenge is in knowing the various money laundering patterns to look for. Leong elaborates: “For example, what constitutes suspicious behaviour and how do you identify them in a sea of data that is made up of complex customer relationships, diverse monetary instruments, transaction channels and international reach?

Lesson No. 1 for CIO - Build Right Skills

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It's been clear for some time that being a successful CIO has less to do with technology than it does with being a business leader. Oct. 2004, Survey bears that out. The top three personal skills needed for success cited by the more than 500 IT chiefs who responded are:

• Effective communication (chosen by 86 percent)
• Strategic thinking and planning (72 percent)
• Understanding business processes and operations (71 percent).
  
• Rated at the bottom: technical proficiency.

Successful CIOs have outlined their strategic roles and claim (or in many cases, reclaim) their seats at the executive table by running IT like a business. CIOs establish themselves as corporate leaders and better forge alliances with their business-side peers. few more challenges CIOs have are how to deal with those annoying phishing scams and how to handle the even more difficult challenge of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

For all those CIOs struggling to get board room entry and luncheon with top cream of organisation, roll your sleeves and start working on learning or relearning above lesson.

If u like above, drop a word as your valuable comments....

Two Sides of Coin - Online Shopping and Auction (eBAY)

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Does online shopping and online auction can fetch good numbers for you in 2005? Yes, if you are retailer, stockist or wholesaler and have pain managing your inventory, look at Ebay kind of auction and online shopping option in your business strategy for 2005.

Why? Look at the some of the statistics of 2004:
eBay has six times more users than its closest rival, Yahoo!, and other auction alternatives do not even bear comparison.In January, 2004, an average of 19 million items were available for sale on eBay. Today, the number is 25 million. The site registers 2,000 to 3,000 new users daily. This is on top of the 114 million current eBay users worldwide, 90 percent of whom are buyers. In short, eBay compels small businesses to establish a presence.

Is It Too Late to Get in the eBay Game?
eBay claims that 430,000 people earn a living on the site, mostly small business owners and individuals. Few sellers are having their own online shopping sites or brick and mortar outlets but, still few sellers employ full time employees to monitor and host several auctions and sales item behalf of one timers.

Auctions Versus Stores
The eBay world breaks down into two hemispheres: the auction sales for which its best-known and fixed price venues that include eBay Stores and the Half.com subsidiary. eBay announced the closing of Half.com in July. However, by October, when Half.com sellers failed to move to the Stores in sufficient numbers, eBay reprieved Half.com from death row. However, besides its being a discount venue, Half.com's future remains nebulous at best.

Innovative Way of Generating more Sale:
In addition to an eBay Stores and Half.com, there has been a fixed-price alternative within the auction format since 2000: the Buy It Now option. For a fee, sellers can post a Buy It Now alternative price on their auction sales. Once a buyer places a bid on the item the Buy It Now feature vanishes, and the bidding continues in the auction format. Conversely, if the item sells at the Buy It Now price, the auction ends and the seller must start a new auction to sell duplicate stock.

According to analysts who cover eBay, fixed price sales in the eBay Stores, Half.com and the Buy It Now auction formats account for 29 percent of "gross merchandise volume" (not to be confused with revenues generated) on eBay. But Buy It Now works best with commodities and products so common that the lowest price item is usually what sells. For anyone seeking to sell at retail, eBay Stores can be viable alternative to the site's auctions. The advantages of establishing an eBay Store include the following:

• The individual item listing fees are considerably less expensive than the auction format, and they last longer. The basic Store fee is $10 per month plus a two-cents-per-item fee per month, and items can be listed indefinitely. Auction listing fees begin at 35 cents-per-item-per category on sales that can run for up to ten days. (However, the Store closing fees are the same as for the eBay auction format.)
• Store sellers get a link on their auction pages leading potential buyers to their Store.
• Stores allow cross promotion. Store sellers can show four other Store items in their auction listings that are linked to their stores. For example, you could offer higher-priced products, similar items to what sold or accessories to the sale item. All bidders and buyers see this graphic on the auction sale and Store pages.
• Sellers can customize their Store's graphics, colors and product presentation.
• Unlike auctions, Stores come with a search box, allowing buyers to search the seller's complete inventory — the only such individual seller search option on eBay.
• Stores are a "fix it and forget it" venue. Auctions, particularly for sellers marketing one-of-a-kind-merchandise, are time-consuming to create and maintain.

The Downside of Establishing an eBay Store
It you are looking to run a business on eBay, an eBay Store may seem like a logical place to start. In fact, eBay offers the first month of Store listings free while proclaiming that Stores can increase a seller's sales by 25 percent — after three months. Neither the offer nor the info is good news. The reason here is that the stores lag far behind the auction venue in generating income. Sellers know it, and eBay knows it.

eBay users are auction-oriented. eBay's claim of a best-case scenario 25 percent increase in sales acknowledges that sellers will still accrue 75 percent of their sales in the auction format. (There are 25 million auction items compared to, perhaps, two-to-three million items for sale in the Stores.) More telling is the "after three months" asterisk proviso, which shows that buyers wander into Stores at a slow pace — most often only after establishing buying relationships from the seller's auctions.

Just as an independent Web site will be lost on the Web without good search engine placement, an eBay Store will remain a lonely place until the seller attracts a following of buyers he can steer into his Store. In short, auctions are the most viable starting point for entering the eBay market.

Now for the hard part: How do you ensure you are getting the most from your eBay auction presence? Wait for a while

Help ..Help.....Help..........Child Victim of Tsunami

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This child has missed its parents in the Tsunami incident. just keep passing this, somewhere this child's parents might come to know the whereabouts of this child



Please send this to everyoneman you know, as we don’t have anything to lose. Atleast the boy might regain his family! (Thus decided to post on blog also)

Looking for his family.
The boy about 2 years, from Khoa Lak is missing his parents. Nobody knows what country he comes from. If anyboy known him please contact us by
phone 076-249400-4 ext. 1336, 1339 or e- mail : info@phuket-inter-hospital.co.th

Commerical Impact of Weak Security

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As per CIO's October 2004 Survey on IT Spending in 2005 - 69% of respondant agreed that, they will increase their IT spending on IT security. Increament anticipated was in the range of 15% on higher side to 6 % on lower side.

I came across another article from Internetnews.com about eBay Moves on Without Passport. Excerpts from the same are given below.

While a well-implemented and widely accepted service that allows shoppers to move from store to store without having to register with each separately could be a boon to e-commerce, experts agree that Microsoft's security issues have left users hesitant.

In a notice released late Wednesday, eBay said members will have to sign in through eBay directly starting in late January.

"Once this takes place, the Microsoft Passport button that is currently displayed on Sign In pages will be replaced with links to a page with more information, including Help in case you cannot remember your User ID or password," the notice said.

eBay also said it will discontinue sending eBay Notifications through Microsoft .NET alerts, and recommended that users who would like to continue receiving auction updates will be able to sign up and get them through their mobile phone or PDA.

Microsoft, meanwhile has nixed its site directory for Passport, although Passport will be very much a way of life for users of Microsoft's Web sites, such as its e-mail offering Hotmail.

"We have discontinued our Site Directory, but you'll know when you can use your Passport to make sign-in easier. Just look for the .NET Passport Sign In button!" a notice on its Passport site said.

In October, online job listing company Monster.com stopped using Passport after three years as a partner.

The latest move from eBay raises the question of whether Passport has a future in Redmond's vision of using the sign-on system for accessing secure Web services.

Many analysts believe Web services, distributed computing that allows applications to communicate with one another, will only work if vendors can promise safe, trustworthy single sign-on services to users. For example, experts expect a combination of single sign-on and Web services to enable shoppers to purchase goods in a mall through a handheld computer.

But Microsoft has been faced with mounting concerns about security due to a rash of security issues in its Windows operating system and IE browser. The problems have left some customers and partners leery about subscribing to Passport or other services that require users to provide their personal information, such as address and credit card data.

The situation wasn't helped in 2003 when two security analysts for Gartner urged financial institutions and other enterprises to stop using Microsoft's .NET Passport service.

"Microsoft failed to thoroughly test Passport's security architecture, and this flaw — uncovered more than six months after Microsoft added the vulnerable feature to the system — raises serious doubts about the reliability of every Passport identity issued to date," according to a report at the time by John Pescatore and Avivah Litan for Gartner.

"Passport lost momentum a long time ago, and now we have significant evidence of market erosion. I'm sure this is not the last such case we'll hear about," Forrester security analyst Jonathan Penn said.

"Remember, eBay is being hit by fraud via phishing and keystroke logging attacks on its customers," he said. "The last thing they need to worry about when dealing with all these account compromises is an open door over which they have no control. The security weaknesses and lack of control participating organizations have in Passport (being a centralized, MS-run service) is undoubtedly a big factor behind eBay's decision."

The company also faces tough competition regarding single sign-on and authentication systems. HP, Sun Microsystems, and others offer their own federated identity service through the Liberty Alliance, which IBM joined in October along with seven other members.

"Authentication remains a widespread industry issue," Earl Perkins, a security analyst at META Group, said of Liberty at the time. "An organization capable of leveraging support from influential companies across industries and developing and model that makes strong authentication convenient, affordable, and interoperable between infrastructures and authenticators... is well-positioned to drive widespread adoption."

I met lot many bunch of MS evangalist who advocate and sometimes preaches that, MS products are suppose to be the world's best upto extent of de-sale Linux and Unix based products ( Favourite argument of this guys is which version of Linux? Which build of UNIX?)

I suggest MS guys need to be matured enough to compare themelves as they even don't know that above is evidance enough to be quoted that, organisation loose competitive edge as well as hit badly on bottomline with above divorce incidents.

If u read the above blog, why not sound of your wisdom as comment??