There is more to federation than just allowing our two partner enterprises to exchange instant messages. There are also the conferencing services that allow the two partners to host a meeting on one or the other's infrastructure and allow them to present content such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. Externally, this is the LiveMeeting service that Microsoft hosts for customers. There is the ability to host audio/video, such as real-time discussions using microphones, Web cams, or the new Microsoft RoundTable device.

For meetings of this type, there is an allowance made for anonymous users. Each must have a conference invite (made up of a URL/URI with session information, location information, and an invite key) to successfully join the conference.

Although the requirements for federated users with verifiable credentials are not too different, they do have the following characteristics:

Verifiable credentials means that you are an authenticated member of the domain in which the meeting is hosted, or you are an authenticated member of a partner domain. The fact that you must be authenticated to your home domain prevents you from being an authenticated member from a non-domain location (such as a kiosk or another computer not in your company domain).