[7952]

Microsoft have a lot of lock in with security that makes cloud deployment harder. You may be able to easily edit a document in the cloud; but can you authenticate access to it using Active Directory? If an employee leaves can I remove access to all the SaaS apps they use instantly? Large players like Google can make solutions to these kind of problems, but how many start-up SaaS companies can afford to integrate with something like AD? Microsoft does still act as a gatekeeper.

[arethuza]

Integrating with AD for authentication of users to an external service in the cloud isn't that difficult - I've seen a number of approaches work although I must admit I've never actually seen the "official" approach of Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) in action:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory_Federation_Ser...