Microsoft's federated identity platform passed its first SAML 2.0 interoperability test with favorable marks, signaling the end to the vendor's standoff against the protocol. The eight-week multivendor interoperability workout conducted by the Liberty Alliance and the Kantara Initiative also resulted in passing marks for two other first-time entrants -- SAP and Siemens. Return testers Entrust, IBM, Novell, and Ping Identity also passed. Results were announced. "The Liberty Interoperable testing was a great opportunity to verify that Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0 is interoperable with others' SAML 2.0 implementations. This should give our customers confidence that their federation deployments using ADFS will 'just work,'" says Conrad Bayer, product unit manager for federated identity at Microsoft.