Microsoft hires an open-source identity expert
Microsoft, long the bastion of proprietary thought, is increasingly adding open-source DNA to the fold. And it's adding to its roster of open-source veterans: Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxip Identity and ActiveState …
Context & Ripple Effects
This hire is a small but telling data point in Microsoft's slow pivot from proprietary fortress to open-source participant. Just months earlier, Bill Hilf had publicly laid out Microsoft's open source strategy, and an open-source identity project was still awaiting Microsoft's blessing — so bringing in Dick Hardt, the Sxip Identity founder and ActiveState veteran, signals that identity is where the company intends to engage rather than stonewall. The arc only accelerates from here: a dedicated open-source subsidiary in 2012, OSI sponsorship by 2017, and eventually the GitHub acquisition.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gains in-house expertise on user-centric identity standards at a moment when its blessing or rejection of open identity projects directly shapes whether they reach enterprise adoption.
- Sxip Identity loses its founder and CEO, while Dick Hardt's prior work — including ActiveState — gains a direct channel into Redmond's platform decisions.
Second-order effects
- Competing identity vendors and standards bodies now have to treat Microsoft as a potential collaborator rather than purely a threat, changing coalition dynamics around open identity specifications.
- Other proprietary incumbents face pressure to make similar open-source hires to avoid looking closed by comparison, turning individual recruits into competitive signaling.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, hiring open-source veterans becomes a stepping stone toward structural engagement — dedicated subsidiaries, standards-body membership, and acquisitions of developer platforms — reshaping how large proprietary companies absorb open ecosystems.
- Identity itself trends toward interoperable, user-centric models where no single vendor controls the credential layer, though Microsoft's exact role remains contingent on follow-through.
The trend: The steady absorption of open-source DNA into proprietary software giants, one strategic hire and concession at a time.