Subject: [KEYPROV] Key Management - Deployment Strategy Issues

From: "Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:57:34 +0100

Dear list;

I may be alone with the following view but I strongly believe that the outcome (market acceptance, deployment) of the key-provisioning and key-management standard proposals that are currently on the table and targeting mobile phones, will more depend on the roll-out strategy than on pure technical considerations, maybe like the famous VHS versus BetaMax debacle.

That more than 50% of future mobile phones will be powered by Open Source is an indication that the traditional best-of-breed vendor-solution is not a surefire success.  In fact, it is virtually impossible creating a useful add-on KM-solution on Google's Android because you cannot get access to the native platform as an ISV.  That is, a KM-solution must effectively be a part of the operating system itself!

Since mobile phones also represent a much appreciated consumer gadget, a KM-solution should IMO include consumers as well in the plot.

BTW, the timing seems to be perfect; WebKit's <keygen> used by Apple, Nokia and Google was explicitly cast out of HTML5 due to its apparent inferiority, while the equally proprietary counterparts from Mozilla and Microsoft have never been suggested as standards.

Put in a somewhat less serious new-age dressing: "All planets stand in line" :-)

Regards
Anders Rundgren