I don't like Microsoft much either and even I can still see your comments aren't fair > These things all seem less and less important, though? Don't most moder

I don't like Microsoft much either and even I can still see your comments aren't fair > These things all seem less and less important, though? Don't most modern companies have web services for their internal apps? Actually it's more important than ever. All these cloud services means when staff leave there's more risk of an account accidentally being left open. Federated access resolves this problem. > I don't have AD - I have an SSO web login for a variety of web sites and SAS products. That "SSO web login" might still be Active Directory (it might not, but in many organisations it is). > File shares? That's Dropbox or Google Drive now. Or Microsoft OneDrive -- which would be authenticated against AD. > Email? In your browser. I'm a big fan of local mail clients but Microsoft have supported web mail longer than most people might realise. Quite a few years long than Google Mail. Longer even than Yahoo! Mail. OWA (Outlook Web Access) was first shipped in Microsoft Exchange 5 released sometime in mid to late 90s on Windows NT4. Sure, OWA was pretty basic but did a good enough job. Microsoft also bought Hotmail back in '97 These days Microsoft have a pretty extensive suite of web-based office applications from Word and Excel through to Outlook. You might have heard of Office 365? Well that can also authenticate against Active Directory.