Google may be looking to turn Windows 10 PCs into Enterprise Chromebooks

According to a recent upload to the Chromium developer site, Google is working on making your Google Account a credential provider for Windows, allowing you to login to your Windows PC using your Google Account, similar to how users can log in using a smart card or other credential providers.

Credential providers are the primary mechanism for user authentication—they currently are the only method for users to prove their identity which is required for logon and other system authentication scenarios. With Windows 10 and the introduction of Microsoft Passport, credential providers are more important than ever; they will be used for authentication into apps, websites, and more.

Microsoft provides a variety of credential providers as part of Windows, such as password, PIN, smartcard, and Windows Hello (Fingerprint, Face, and Iris recognition). These are referred to as “system credential providers” in this article. OEMs, Enterprises, and other entities can write their own credential providers and integrate them easily into Windows. These are referred to as “third-party credential providers”…

The service is designed to work with G Suite, Google’s bundle of productivity services tuned to the enterprise and a competitor for Microsoft’s Office suite.

Google has not revealed exactly how the integration would work, but interestingly the service is being implemented via Google Chrome and would require starting Chrome on  first login, and one can easily imagine Google locking Windows 10 users into the Chrome browser in a type of kiosk mode which would effectively turn PCs into expensive Chromebooks.

BleepingComputer has a lot more about the nuts and bolts of how Google Credential Provider is put together, but exactly how it will work Google is keeping close to their chest.

Read more there.

Via WindowsLatest.com