The clever hawk hides his talons (Japanese proverb)

BT Wholesale is certainly up to some interesting things, but the company press release stream doesn't really tell the whole story. Last Friday I wrote about the "Livetime" project (bringing TV to a radio near you...), and now a highly-valued reader points me to a deal last week with Midentity (take the tour), which has over 800k accounts active on its innovative contact/identity management application. An interesting take on this can be found here. The conclusion that I draw is that, as Retail loses "control" of the end user to other platforms (cable, ULL, mobile) and service providers, Wholesale is hedging, seeking ways to remain a relevant part of the value chain through the identity space, which may end up being at least as important.