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What I can’t understand is why Azure AD doesn’t have a stronger position in the consumer space. Authentication via Google, Apple, and even still Facebook are ne

What I can’t understand is why Azure AD doesn’t have a stronger position in the consumer space. Authentication via Google, Apple, and even still Facebook are nearly always supported on customer-facing logins. I rarely see an option for Microsoft. They have a commanding position in the enterprise. What’s keeping them from crossing those enterprise boundaries?

MattGaiser 4y ago
Do enough people still use consumer Microsoft accounts? Except for myself, it has been a long time since I have encountered a hotmail address or live address or outlook address in the wild. I've gotten career advice several times to get a GMail instead, because Microsoft was considered out of date and backward (not so much anymore).
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  I'd expect this to grow now that Windows pushes more aggressively to use an MS account to login. Plus, if this works as well as it does with the "corporate" AzureAD, it would be a better experience for users. Just "log on with your Windows account". Not saying that's necessarily a good, thing, mind. Only that I expect support to broaden.
- hedora 4y ago
  Anyone that uses Minecraft (edit: or Xbox) I'm sure it is only a matter of time until some middle manager stakes their promotion on merging it with github and/or linkedin. Microsoft is the only company I deal with where I cannot reliably authenticate. I wish they'd just stop trying to run consumer accounts.
  - easrng 4y ago
    You can link your GitHub account to a Microsoft account and log in to Microsoft with your GitHub account, not sure if you can log in to GitHub with your Microsoft account tho.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  There are lots of very popular Microsoft services for consumers including Xbox and Office 365. Combined, these have hundreds of millions of paid subscribers.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    minecraft too
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  How times have changed, I mostly hear Google being called backwards now for its view that customers are just beta testers you dispose of when your latest moonshot project doesn’t hit orbit.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  You can have a ms account but never use or know or share the ms email address associated with it
candiddevmike 4y ago
Microsoft's support for multiple accounts is atrocious. I can easily have 5+ Google accounts that I switch between, moving between MS accounts is awful. Additionally MS's free consumer offerings are not competitive with Gmail/Drive IMO.
- GordonS 4y ago
  It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    This is a terrible idea to begin with.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need I have a friend who managed to do get into this mess, and he's still not sure how he did it. firstname.lastname@companybizname.TLD is apparently linked to two separate identities at Microsoft, one is a business account, one is a "personal" account. Every time he experiences any kind of login issue, this bites him :/
    - magicalhippo 4y ago
      I read an explanation from some Microsoft page or rep. that it had to do with making personal purchases in the Windows Store when you're signed in using your business account. IIRC the rationale was that the personal account could persist beyond your employment, so you wouldn't lose any purchases if you switched jobs. If I indeed recall correctly, then that doesn't really make sense. Just force people to make a different, actual personal account, and have them use that.
      - logifail 4y ago
andylynch 4y ago
They were an early mover in this area twenty years ago with the original Hailstorm / .Net Passport which was skeptically received and wasn’t helped by some spectacular outages. Google and Facebook leveraged their apps and especially GMail - Apple had the leverage from their App Store to force everyone that mattered to at their service too.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Incidentally, a Microsoft Passport login still works on any site with today's "Login with Microsoft" ... and there are starting to be more along side "Login with Google" or "Login with Apple". These days, a consumer + biz page login page can look like this: https://www.xsplit.com/user/auth https://www.xsplit.com/user/auth There's almost no good reason to require emails/password rather than let users use their preferred IdP. I think the reason it's less common is simply that indie devs assume everyone uses free Google Workspaces. This year we're seeing more Microsoft Logins. Perhaps one reason is that now Google Workspaces is no longer free and startups are realizing they can get actual Office with actual apps at the same per $6 to $12 per user cost. Then in turn, supporting that login.
thakoppno 4y ago
In the US at least it seems like we’re at the stage where every new account created is essentially tied back to a social security number. One cannot get an e-mail address without a phone. One cannot get a phone without a credit check. A credit check requires a social security number.
- DanAtC 4y ago
  Prepaid phones are readily available in the US, no ID or SSN required.
  - Gh0stRAT 4y ago
    Prepaid phones all-too-often can't be used for SMS/phone authentication. Banks in particular seem to dislike them. (when it doesn't work, you'll usually get an error message about the number not being supported or words to that effect)
MrStonedOne 4y ago
pid-1 4y ago
Only very recently Windows started requiring a MS account. I'd guess most people who don't own a Xbox don't have a MS account.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Every hotmail and outlook email is an MS account...
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I was forced to use one to set up my new laptop
aflag 4y ago
Isn't every github account also a microsoft account? There are plenty sites there integrating with github login.
rwalle 4y ago
There is an obvious reason. Facebook and Google provide "Sign-in with Facebook/Google account" not because they do it out of goodwill, to only make it "easier" or "smoother" to login -- it obviously cost resources on their end to enable such features -- it helps them better identify users and then serve ads. And Google can be really aggressive -- try reddit or Quora. Apple, on the other hand, tries to sell "login with Apple account" with a different approach: they advertise the "privacy" part of it and how you can hide your email address by using it's sign-in service. And they have a term where login with Apple must be enabled on an app and website if a company has an app on the app store and it supports any other third-party login. In other words, if Reddit supports login with Google on iPhone, it must also support login with Apple ID. This helped the adoption a lot. For Microsoft, they are relatively late and small in the ad business (for now) so I guess they don't really care about getting more of your information via sign-in services. And they are not on this privacy bandwagon as Apple does. So they really have no incentive for this.

MattGaiser 4y ago

Do enough people still use consumer Microsoft accounts? Except for myself, it has been a long time since I have encountered a hotmail address or live address or outlook address in the wild. I've gotten career advice several times to get a GMail instead, because Microsoft was considered out of date and backward (not so much anymore).

vladvasiliu 4y ago
I'd expect this to grow now that Windows pushes more aggressively to use an MS account to login. Plus, if this works as well as it does with the "corporate" AzureAD, it would be a better experience for users. Just "log on with your Windows account". Not saying that's necessarily a good, thing, mind. Only that I expect support to broaden.
hedora 4y ago
Anyone that uses Minecraft (edit: or Xbox) I'm sure it is only a matter of time until some middle manager stakes their promotion on merging it with github and/or linkedin. Microsoft is the only company I deal with where I cannot reliably authenticate. I wish they'd just stop trying to run consumer accounts.
- easrng 4y ago
  You can link your GitHub account to a Microsoft account and log in to Microsoft with your GitHub account, not sure if you can log in to GitHub with your Microsoft account tho.
daveoc64 4y ago
There are lots of very popular Microsoft services for consumers including Xbox and Office 365. Combined, these have hundreds of millions of paid subscribers.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  minecraft too
faeriechangling 4y ago
How times have changed, I mostly hear Google being called backwards now for its view that customers are just beta testers you dispose of when your latest moonshot project doesn’t hit orbit.
quickthrower2 4y ago
You can have a ms account but never use or know or share the ms email address associated with it

candiddevmike 4y ago

Microsoft's support for multiple accounts is atrocious. I can easily have 5+ Google accounts that I switch between, moving between MS accounts is awful. Additionally MS's free consumer offerings are not competitive with Gmail/Drive IMO.

GordonS 4y ago
It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need.
- nine_k 4y ago
  This is a terrible idea to begin with.
- logifail 4y ago
  > It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need I have a friend who managed to do get into this mess, and he's still not sure how he did it. firstname.lastname@companybizname.TLD is apparently linked to two separate identities at Microsoft, one is a business account, one is a "personal" account. Every time he experiences any kind of login issue, this bites him :/
  - magicalhippo 4y ago
    I read an explanation from some Microsoft page or rep. that it had to do with making personal purchases in the Windows Store when you're signed in using your business account. IIRC the rationale was that the personal account could persist beyond your employment, so you wouldn't lose any purchases if you switched jobs. If I indeed recall correctly, then that doesn't really make sense. Just force people to make a different, actual personal account, and have them use that.
    - logifail 4y ago

andylynch 4y ago

They were an early mover in this area twenty years ago with the original Hailstorm / .Net Passport which was skeptically received and wasn’t helped by some spectacular outages. Google and Facebook leveraged their apps and especially GMail - Apple had the leverage from their App Store to force everyone that mattered to at their service too.

Terretta 4y ago
Incidentally, a Microsoft Passport login still works on any site with today's "Login with Microsoft" ... and there are starting to be more along side "Login with Google" or "Login with Apple". These days, a consumer + biz page login page can look like this: https://www.xsplit.com/user/auth https://www.xsplit.com/user/auth There's almost no good reason to require emails/password rather than let users use their preferred IdP. I think the reason it's less common is simply that indie devs assume everyone uses free Google Workspaces. This year we're seeing more Microsoft Logins. Perhaps one reason is that now Google Workspaces is no longer free and startups are realizing they can get actual Office with actual apps at the same per $6 to $12 per user cost. Then in turn, supporting that login.

thakoppno 4y ago

In the US at least it seems like we’re at the stage where every new account created is essentially tied back to a social security number. One cannot get an e-mail address without a phone. One cannot get a phone without a credit check. A credit check requires a social security number.

DanAtC 4y ago
Prepaid phones are readily available in the US, no ID or SSN required.
- Gh0stRAT 4y ago
  Prepaid phones all-too-often can't be used for SMS/phone authentication. Banks in particular seem to dislike them. (when it doesn't work, you'll usually get an error message about the number not being supported or words to that effect)

MrStonedOne 4y ago

pid-1 4y ago

Only very recently Windows started requiring a MS account. I'd guess most people who don't own a Xbox don't have a MS account.

rejectfinite 4y ago
Every hotmail and outlook email is an MS account...
quickthrower2 4y ago
I was forced to use one to set up my new laptop

aflag 4y ago

Isn't every github account also a microsoft account? There are plenty sites there integrating with github login.

rwalle 4y ago

There is an obvious reason. Facebook and Google provide "Sign-in with Facebook/Google account" not because they do it out of goodwill, to only make it "easier" or "smoother" to login -- it obviously cost resources on their end to enable such features -- it helps them better identify users and then serve ads. And Google can be really aggressive -- try reddit or Quora. Apple, on the other hand, tries to sell "login with Apple account" with a different approach: they advertise the "privacy" part of it and how you can hide your email address by using it's sign-in service. And they have a term where login with Apple must be enabled on an app and website if a company has an app on the app store and it supports any other third-party login. In other words, if Reddit supports login with Google on iPhone, it must also support login with Apple ID. This helped the adoption a lot. For Microsoft, they are relatively late and small in the ad business (for now) so I guess they don't really care about getting more of your information via sign-in services. And they are not on this privacy bandwagon as Apple does. So they really have no incentive for this.