B.C. Government at DIDW 2007

Ian Bailey, Director of Application Architecture of Providence of British Columbia spoke about the Proof of concept project his company had done using Microsoft products and Sxip Identity.

The talk was attended by 50+ people and the whitepaper was available during his talk where WS* standards were showcased to be the standard to use when building an identity framework for the population of B.C.

Ian also mentioned the Current BCeID home where they will look to offer Managed Cards for these users. He also mentioned today users can go to BCeID site and get a login and password which they can use on 70+ sites. He hopes to make this site offer up Managed Cards with help from CA. He also said there is a Relying party they are working with to accept the Managed Card they will issue. He thinks this will be a great way to see if the market is ready for Managed Card.

He then mentioned the schooling and how Managed Cards would tie into Managed Card scenario and offering K-12 a Managed Card for school purposes. Perhaps this is a great idea or perhaps these children will go thru school use the Managed card then leave and have to yet again get another login and password? (well this is yet to be seen). But if the students choose to use the same Managed Card for other reasons, should BC Government know where the students are using their Managed Card? Ian said, not really.

Then came the questions about how much of the work was custom coding and work and how much was really out of the box? Don Schmidt from Microsoft took the question and said most of the application would be out of the box, but B.C. Government wanted to do a Proof of Concept as soon as our documentation was done, but we will have out of the box software after we are done planning and building. CA said they too are looking to build most of this as a product as well so it will be most of it as plug and play. Then Samuel Devasahayam who is the lead QA at Microsoft answered and said we will ensure to do testing to ensure it works.

BC also mentioned that Microsoft will provide software so that pilot users can access SharePoint 2007 collaboration site with Managed Cards.

Most people were a little bummed that they have to wait for another year to see most of the products Ian talked about to come.

Overall this was a great session and most people stayed till the absolute last minute. And guess having the whitepaper which BC had done on WS* standards at the talk was a great idea, since most people stopped by to take one after the session.