The end of passwords - for sure, but when?

My first blog post "How to create better passwords - why bother?!" back in December, 2005, tried to briefly summarize my thoughts and comments I've been making on the most commonly accepted way of identifying yourself - passwords.

Bill Gates did a commentary on the issue, note where, at the RSA Conference, perhaps the company that's most actively building awareness on the potential/need for two-factor authentication, or anything else but using static passwords for various access control purposes. Moreover, it was again Bill Gates who wanted to integrate the Belgian eID card with MSN Messenger (Anonymity or Privacy on the Internet?) Microsoft are always reinventing the wheel, be it with antivirus, or their Passport service, and while they have the financial obligations to any of their stakeholders, I feel it's a wrong approach on the majority of occasions.

What I wonder is, are they forgetting the fact that over 95% of the PCs out there, run Microsoft Windows, and not Vista, and how many would continue to do so polluting the Internet at the bottom line. My point is that MS's constant rush towards "the next big thing" doesn't actually provides them with the resources to tackle some of the current problems, at least in a timely manner. What do you think? What could Microsoft do to actually influence the acceptance of two-factor authentication, and moreover, how feasible is the concept at the bottom line?

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security, microsoft, authentication, passwords