Today Microsoft released beta 2 of “Geneva,” Microsoft’s open platform that dramatically simplifies user access and secure collaboration across organizational boundaries.  “Geneva” is part of Microsoft’s Business Ready Security strategy, particularly in the areas of “protecting everywhere and accessing anywhere” and “integrating and extending security across the enterprise” through support of heterogeneous environments and interoperability with third party solutions. 

In addition, Microsoft also announced interoperability between “Geneva” and identity & access solutions from leading partners, via the SAML 2.0 and WS-Federation standards.  Interoperable partner solutions include CA Federation Manager and CA SiteMinder, Novell Access Manager, SAP NetWeaver and Sun’s OpenSSO Enterprise and Fedlet software. 

“Geneva” is slated for release in the second half of 2009.  For more information on today’s news, please check out the Forefront blog.