PALO ALTO, Calif. - December 19, 2001 - The Liberty Alliance Project, committed to developing and deploying open standards for network identity, today announced the addition of seven industry-leading companies as founding members and members of the management board. Those seven companies include: American Express, AOL Time Warner, France Telecom, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard Company, MasterCard International and a major commercial bank [see industry support below]. The other founders of the Alliance and members of the management board are: Bell Canada, Global Crossing, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Openwave Systems, RealNetworks, RSA Security, Sony Corporation, Sun Microsystems, United Airlines and Vodafone.
The Alliance is opening the coalition to sponsor-level membership, which provides full participation in Alliance activities for those companies interested in playing an active role. The participating companies will hold their next Alliance meeting in January. More information on membership is available at www.projectliberty.org.
"With dozens of trusted, worldwide, industry-leading companies participating and over 3,000 inquiries for more information about membership, the Liberty Alliance continues to gain critical mass and represent hundreds of millions of customers," said Eric Dean, president of the Liberty Alliance Management Board and chief information officer of United Airlines. "The Alliance is rapidly moving forward to develop a commercially-viable, open, ubiquitous standard for network identity, authentication and authorization across a multitude of business systems and consumer products touched by the Internet - from cellular phones to Web browsers and automobiles."
In addition to the founding members, other companies that have expressed their intent to participate in the Liberty Alliance include: ActivCard, American Airlines, the Apache Software Foundation, Bank of America, Cingular Wireless, Cisco Systems, CollabNet, Dun and Bradstreet, eBay, Entrust, Fidelity Investments, Gemplus, i2, Intuit, Liberate Technologies, O'Reilly and Associates, Sabre, Schlumberger, Sprint, Travelocity and Verisign.
About the Liberty Alliance Project
The Liberty Alliance Project (www.projectliberty.org) is an alliance formed to create open, federated, single sign-on identity standards for the digital economy via any device connected to the Internet. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations.
Note: Liberty is a code name for this formative initiative.
Company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Liberty Alliance Support
"American Express is pleased to join the Liberty Alliance to extend our role in empowering consumers with convenience and choice when using the Internet. The Alliance underscores our commitment to supporting open technology and services that will enhance the range of choice for consumers, safeguard online privacy and security, and give consumers ultimate control over what information is shared, when it is shared, and with whom. The range of global companies participating in the Alliance will be important to establishing universal standards for convenient, secure online commerce."
- Glen Salow, Executive vice president and Chief Information Officer, American Express
Media Contact: Tony Mitchell (201) 209-5608
"We believe the Liberty Alliance's cooperative and decentralized approach will encourage both competition and consumer choice in this important new space, while protecting privacy and security. The Liberty Alliance's open, federated architecture is the best solution for both consumers and the growth of the medium and will offer a platform on which to build the next generation of online services."
- Barry Schuler, chairman and CEO, America Online, Inc.
Media Contact: Bill Rubacky (703) 265-7854
"The cooperative model of GSM, which is open to all industry players, partners and competitors, has been the key to the success of the GSM. In the same way, the open and decentralized standard promoted by the Liberty Alliance for the authentication of clients represents a turning point in the development of the on-line service market. We are proud to contribute our experience to the Alliance."
- Jean-Jacques Damlamian, executive vice president, France Telecom
Media Contact: Giles Spence 00 33 1 44 44 92 74
"By joining the Liberty Alliance, HP reaffirms its longstanding commitment to supporting open industry standards and market-unifying architectures. Our goal is to increase customer access to interoperable technologies and to stimulate the broadest spectrum of innovation in our industry. Participating in this alliance levels the playing field for IT developers and opens the door for industry-wide collaboration on important matters such as building secure and trusted architectures."
- Rich DeMillo, vice president and chief technology officer, Hewlett-Packard Company
Media Contact: Sherri Stuart (856) 638-6249
"MasterCard is committed to providing a secure environment for all payment transactions, including electronic commerce and mobile commerce. Our active participation on the board of directors for the Liberty Alliance Project will benefit our members by helping to ensure that our efforts towards guaranteed payments over remote channels are consistent with open standards for broad industry adoption."
- Art Kranzley, chief e-Business officer, MasterCard International
Media Contact: Christina Costa (914) 249-4606
Contact information:
AOL
Bill Rubacky
Senior Director
AOL Web Properties Group
22270 Pacific Blvd.
Bldg. CC5
Dulles, VA 20166
Phone: 703.265.7854
AOL Instant Messenger: wildweb
email: rubacky@netscape.com
Mai Mai Tsai, AOL/Netscape
Tel. 650-937-2174;
email mtsai@netscape.com
American Express
Anthony Mitchell
anthony.a.mitchell@aexp.com
Tel. 201-209-5608
Bell Canada
Don Doucette at 514.786.3924
don.doucette@bell.ca
France Telecom
Giles Spence
Tel. +33 1 44 44 92 74
Global Crossing
Karen Hilyard at tel. 212.620.7100
Brett Orsini, vp alliance partners
bret.orsini@globalcrossing.com
Tel. 408-489-2738
Hewlett-Packard Company
Sherri Stuart
HP Netaction Press Relations
Ofc: 856.638.6249
Cell: 610.563.8768
sherri_stuart@hp.com
Mastercard
Lisa Dinicola
914-249-5389
lisa_dinicola@mastercard.com
Christina Costa
Director, Global Communications
MasterCard International
2000 Purchase Street
Purchase, NY 10577
Tel. 914-249-4606
Fax 914-249-4209
christina_costa@mastercard.com
Nokia
Nokia Mobile Phones
Communications
Tel. +358 71 800 8000
NTT DoCoMO
Michael Condon
NTT DoCoMo i-mode Strategy Dept,
Strategy & Alliances Project Coordinator
email: condon@nttdocomo.co.jp
Openwave
Michele Landry
Sr. Manager of Corporate PR
michele.landry@openwave.com
Tel. 650-480-4622
RealNetworks
Erika Shaffer
Tel. 206-892-6191
cell 206-972-5514
RSA
Tim Powers
PR Manager
Tel. 781 301 5344
tpowers@rsasecurity.com
Sony
Lisa Gephardt
Senior Director, Communications
Sony Corporation of America
550 Madison Ave., 33rd Floor
New York, NY 10022
Tel. 212-833-6826
Fax 212-833-6977
lisa_gephardt@sonyusa.com
Sun
Ms. May Goh
may.goh@sun.com
Tel. 408 517 5520
Vodafone
Jon Earl at +44.(0).1635.67440
jon.earl@vodafone.com
Liberty Alliance demonstrates momentum with increased membership and industry support
| Source: Nokia Oyj