Seven new members for Liberty Alliance

At an event held in Tokyo on Monday it announced Adobe, DAI-Labor, Deny All, M-Tech Information Technology, OpenNetwork Technologies, Senforce Technologies and Telewest Broadband are joining up.

Web services require identity verification for benefits such as single sign-on and while the Liberty Alliance already boasts a range of vendors, non-profit organisations and users, its latest round of backers covers many technology bases, including document and location-aware security.

It is notable the body is now also talking about using its standards for applications such as digital rights management -- a vital future area for Microsoft, which holds key ground in the development of web services.

Web services refers to a set of standards based around Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) used to link together software components that bolt together over the internet.

The Liberty Alliance also announced a full-time executive director in the shape of long-time Silicon Valley IT consultant and ex-IBMer Donal O'Shea. Until now, its ranks have been filled with full-time employees of its member companies.