A key point that Microsoft makes in their Virtual Desktop Infrastructure materials is that IT architecture is evolving from device-centric to user-centric approaches.

Fundamentally this means increased portability and mobility of your apps and data across multiple devices, and it’s an effect that will be accelerated through parallel innovations from the world of Cloud Identity.

Cloud Identity
Cloud Identity standards are defined by organizations like the Kantara Initiative, who have a telco working group who specialise in this field.

For example this 18-page presentation Telco Massively Scalable Identity Architecture explains how it can be operated across a telco’s landscape of networks, mobile devices and digital TVs. On slide 9 they describe the critical technical feature: “User identities must be decoupled from network, device and customer identities.” ‘

Decoupling’ refers to the funamental virtualization that Cloud represents – It seperates applications and their data from the hardware that runs them, and as this effect becomes universal it will offer powerful feature benefits for users.

For example consider how your address book is ‘locked’ into your cell phone. You have to re-key in all the contact details if you change phones or providers. Data that is logically virtualized, ie. seperated from this hard-coded device to data relationship, will therefore  be portable and interoperable across any and all devices that you use.

This new level of capability will make possible a new generation of services too – ‘My Universal Cloud Address Book’ kinda thing, ultimately evolving into the Personal Data Store approach.

The technical architecture for achieving this is described in TAS3 – Personal Data Stores. Trusted Architecture for Secure Shared Services (with Privacy) and Personal Data Store.