SSO stands for single sign-on, or access to multiple services using one password. Sun Microsystems has combined their Java System Access Manager and Java System Federation Manager into OpenSSO and announced the product on a website. The next version of the combined software is to be released as Federated Access Manager 8.0. The product provides identity management and gives users a single access identity across multiple applications and networks. Federations is Sun's term for bundling networks into what are called Trusted Domains. Sun hopes with its federation manager to implement these domains as inclusive partner networks along with reusable security mechanisms for seamless authentication and access control in heterogeneous partner environments.

Under the product designation OpenSSO Enterprise, Sun provides additional software support, indemnification and services for OpenSSO. Customers can choose the complete solution package license or the Federation solution license. The introductory price for the complete package starts at $40,000 for enterprises up to 25,000 users, the Federation package costs $20,000 in its minimum version.

Sun is promoting its increasingly strengthened open source strategy under the leadership of Jonathan Schwartz with the release of this software. Nevertheless, the Sun mix of open source and proprietary licensing can be complicated. Recently Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, tried to provide an explanation why.