ABSTRACT
Many consulting organizations, trade associations, and vendors are touting directory services as the center of the communications universe. They believe that enterprises will benefit as they put increasing efforts and resources into their directory services. Application directory services (e.g., the address books in today’s e-mail packages) are devoted to enhancing the functional ability of a particular product, service, or application to its user community. Even though e-mail address books are capable of displaying and possibly administering some information about e-mail users, they are not geared to manage corporate-critical information and deliver it to other applications, users, and services. The predicted benefits are not realized until a company embraces the concept of an enterprise directory service.
