[from the IdPS team]
The Wall Street Journal’s article claiming that IBM was in negotiations to acquire Sun Microsystems stirred up conversations across a spectrum of technology segments from data centers to servers to app servers and on and on. Our colleagues have commented on other aspects of this deal here and here. Before we all get totally ahead of ourselves, the deal (if there is one in the works) is not yet finalized so any commentary is quite speculative at this point. However, many in the industry, Sun and IBM customers especially, are pondering the outcome. With that in mind, here are some early thoughts on possible identity management outcomes.
Role management: Might as well take the easy one first. IBM utilizes partners for role management today, so Sun’s product fills a large hole. Since Sun Role Manager came about through the acquisition of the general-purpose role management vendor VAAU, integration with the IBM identity management product line will be complementary, if not synergistic. Acquisition of the product, development, and delivery resources is clearly an advantage for IBM.
User provisioning: Both vendors have mature products with large market shares, but the two products have significantly different data architectures. Would IBM contemplate keeping both products in their portfolio? Combining the two products would take many years and put both products’ customers through a lot of grief.
Web Access Management/Federation: Sun has OpenSSO (previously Sun Access Manager). IBM has Tivoli Access Manager for e-business (TAMeb). The former is simpler to deploy, is endpoint-based, and has a smaller market share as compared to IBM’s offering. TAMeb is more complex to deploy but has a significantly larger market share. Both products have federation capabilities. Sun is building entitlement management into OpenSSO, but IBM released Tivoli Security Policy Manager last year.
Despite tremendous strides in OpenSSO functionality in recent years, look to IBM to jettison most of OpenSSO in the long-term, and go with its own WAM, federation, and entitlement management products. Sun possesses some innovative federation technology– the Fedlet and virtual federation. The Fedlet is a lightweight implementation of SAML 2.0, which can be embedded in a Java EE Web application. Virtual federation makes it easier to enable federation for multiple legacy applications with a single instance of OpenSSO. Look for IBM to absorb the Fedlet and virtual federation into its developerWorks program.
Enterprise SSO: Sun has a relationship with ActivIdentity and resells the company’s SecureLogin product. IBM recently acquired Encentuate last year, and now possesses an eSSO product in its stable. Look for IBM to jettison the relationship with ActivIdentity – its competitor in the eSSO market. Novell recently acquired a perpetual code license from ActivIdentity for SecureLogin. The license gives Novell access to the SecureLogin source code, which enables Novell to make enhancements and take the product in a different direction. If the IBM-Sun deal goes through, it means that two of ActivIdentity’s major partners will be gone, potentially putting SecureLogin on life support. Don’t cry too much for ActivIdentity; it has the market-leading smart card management system; both Sun and IBM must integrate with it.
Directory Server: Sun has the market-leading directory server, if you exclude Active Directory, which is primarily deployed for its network operating system. IBM has Tivoli Directory Server. Look for IBM to continue to support both products. Today, IBM provides integration with Sun Java System Directory Server because it must ensure compatibility with its IdM products (e.g., TAMeb). IBM can’t drop Tivoli Directory Server because that product has its tentacles in too many IBM products.
Virtual and Meta Directory Server: Neither company has a competitive, full-featured virtual directory server and must partner for this capability. Look for IBM to continue to partner with Radiant Logic, and to a lesser extent Symlabs as development continues on Sun’s virtual directory project. IBM has a meta-directory, from its acquisition of Metamerge, so this technology area is pretty complementary.
Sun’s open source strategy: What does IBM do with all of Sun’s open source projects? Do they all get folded into Eclipse Foundation somehow?
Bottom line: Except for role management, virtual directory, and meta-directory, there are many overlaps in the two vendors’ IdM portfolios that will have to be resolved over time. It is much too early to determine which direction IBM would take, but there is a large Sun customer base to placate – not to mention many more prospective customers in the pipeline.
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