Sun Open SSO to have just one flavor

Open SSO is an identity management system written in Java and scaled for enterprises, compatible with the work of the Liberty Alliance.

"A customer buys the commercial product, they can either deploy that or the open source stable build, Open SSO Express, and they get the same level of support and indemnification," said John Barco (right), Sun's director of identity management.

While Open SSO is designed for enterprises it will quickly come to the consumer market through health care, as insurers and hospitals seek to maintain the identity of consumers accessing health records under HIPAA.

"There's complexity around privacy, securing access to applications and services, then being able to effectively audit those records, who has access to what and when. It's really critical," said Barco.

By offering a single set of open source identity management tools, Barco said, Sun can "complete the circle of trust" needed to give patients access to those records.