A growing rift among members of the Liberty Alliance authentication project is placing the technology's future in question. At the core of the problem is exactly where to target the single-sign-on technology in the face of stiff and growing client-side competition from Microsoft Corp.'s Passport service.

Officials at the Liberty Alliance's founder and chief sponsor, Sun Microsystems Inc., last week went so far as to concede defeat to the Passport authentication service on the Windows platform.

"There is no way we can compete with them there. They have that market tied down really tight," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president at Sun's software group, in Menlo Park, Calif.

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