Network computer maker Sun Microsystems will announce a "digital identity" initiative today to compete with Microsoft’s Passport system for Internet commerce.
SUN, would unveil the initiative "surrounding digital identity solutions" with an alliance of industry partners in a Wednesday morning conference call.
A Sun spokeswoman declined to elaborate ahead of the formal launch of the initiative by Mr Scott McNealy, chief executive and chairman, but the company has said it would take on Microsoft in this market, seen as key to making the Internet easier to use.
Microsoft's Passport system seeks to speed Web commerce by keeping files of sensitive data on users so that a Passport user signed into the system no longer has to re-enter often-used information and passwords.
Mr McNealy, who has been among the most outspoken critics of Microsoft's attempts to build new services from the strength of its alleged monopoly position in computer operating systems, has said Microsoft should not keep such data.
"There will be an alternative to this. Soon. But not soon enough," Mr McNealy told a conference in Aspen, Colorado in August in a speech that criticized Microsoft's attempt to expand onto the Internet.
At issue in part is the degree to which the organization holding personal data could use it, where the data would be held and the security of the personal information.
Sun markets its Java Internet-software as the backbone of a system to rival Microsoft infrastructure software on the Web.