Currently, there is a lot of work done around user-centric identity management. But until now, there is a lack of strong authentication in that area – even while there are several existing approaches which can be used and even while there are many potential identity providers.
Despite the fact, that there are several open questions regarding business models for identity providers and the, until now, slow adoption of user-centric technologies beyond the experts and geeks, we expect a bright future for strong authentication as well as for user-centric identity management. User-centric technologies are too logical to not be successful – and strong authentication then is a must.
That is even more true because user-centric Identity Management is a key technology for cloud computing, because it allows users to interact flexibly with multiple services. Thus, these technologies will also make their entry into the market for business users and go well beyond the customer facing market.
In any case, it will require a lot of education of end-users to understand the necessity of strong authentication – and the approaches which are most likely to become successful are the ones which are very easy to use.
