Burton Group Identity Blog

Oracle and Sun Clear a Big Hurdle

Blogger: Lori Rowland

Thursday the European Commission gave Oracle its unconditional approval to take over Sun Microsystems.  Oracle still awaits approval from other jurisdictions including Russia and China, but given the EU’s ruling it is likely that these approvals will be expedited. It is fair to say that the EU’s approval was the last major hurdle for Oracle to overcome before the acquisition can move forward. The EU’s prolonged approval process had cast a cloud of doubt over the acquisition, leaving Sun’s IdM customers anxious over the fate of their IdM solution. Today’s announcement is particularly good news for those customers.

The IdM community has been closely watching the developments of this acquisition. Whereas many of Sun’s products have no direct equivalents in the Oracle portfolio, there is significant overlap between the companies’ IdM products. Since Oracle announced its plans to acquire Sun in April 2009, Burton Group has been inundated with inquires from both Oracle and Sun customers wondering how to move forward with purchases, deployments, upgrades, and product choices.

Oracle remains restricted in the amount of information it can share before the acquisition closes. The company has, however, put a plan in motion to communicate its roadmap and integration strategy over the coming months.  On January 27, 2010, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will host a webcast highlighting the combined Oracle and Sun strategy. Oracle and Sun customers can register for the webcast via this link:

http://www.oracle.com/go/?&Src=6806472&Act=22&pcode=WWMK09040443MPP007 

Once the acquisition closes Oracle will be able to provide more specific information on its planned IdM roadmap.  On January 27, we expect Oracle to lay out its combined IdM strategy and roadmap while discussing maintenance and support implications in line with Oracle’s track record in past acquisitions. Based on what we’ve seen with the BEA acquisition, Burton Group expects that representatives from Oracle will offer to meet with individual organizations to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible. Burton Group encourages organizations that have a strong investment in Sun (or Oracle) IdM products to take advantage of such meetings to express their individual needs and concerns.
 
Although the European Commission’s approval does not mark the closure of the acquisition, it is significant progress.  The pending acquisition has had a measurable impact on the IdM market. The most obvious being the uncertainty it has left for Sun customers.  As the adage goes “it’s the not knowing that kills you.”  As Burton Group has done in the past, we encourage Sun IdM customers to remain calm – do not rush to any drastic conclusions regarding the acquisition. One thing that Oracle has consistently communicated throughout its past acquisitions is its intention to provide customers with long-term support and maintenance.  Burton Group urges customers to attend the January 27 webcast, continue to check the IdPS blog for updates, and schedule a dialogue with Burton Group analysts to discuss our perspective on a combined Oracle-Sun IdM strategy and the implications it may have in your environment. You may also visit the April, 2009 IdPS blog post where we laid out Burton Group’s perspective on the implications of the acquisition.

Entrust Agrees to Buyout

Blogger: Mark Diodati

You may have read that Entrust has agreed to be bought out by a private-equity firm (Thoma Bravo LLC). The deal must be approved by the shareholders. Consider some milestones for Entrust this decade:

• 2000 - Entrust acquires EnCommerce (a web access management [WAM] company) for $470 million

• 2006 - Entrust acquires Business Signatures (a consumer authentication company) for $55 million

• 2009 - Entrust agrees to buyout for $114 million

It’s a little shocking to see that Entrust will be acquired for 22% of the cost of these two acquisitions, and only two times the cost of the relatively small Business Signatures acquisition.

While we know little about Thoma Bravo, it does not appear likely that it will close Entrust’s doors and sell its intellectual property. Our conversations with the Entrust folks support this, as they told us that Thoma Bravo has retained 11 of the past 12 management teams (the one management team apparently left under a cloud of illegal activity). A list of Thoma Bravo’s current software and technology investments can be seen here.

My recommendation to Entrust customers: stay the course until more information is known. My assessment regarding its PKI technology is that it remains superior and complementary to its primary competitor (Microsoft) – for now. For example, the Entrust Entelligence Security Provider (ESP) provides essential PKI features not present in the operating system. The company has a competent WAM solution, which includes centralized agent management and federation support.

My colleague Bob Blakley offered valuable insight; specifically that the buyout was the day that the PKI business died. He’s on to something. I would qualify his comment by saying that yesterday was the day that Big PKI died. Entrust cast a large shadow in the late 90's as the intellectual leader for enterprise PKI, but times have changed as Microsoft Windows’ PKI capabilities have increased. There are a few companies that started with PKI as the primary technology (Arcot and TriCipher come to mind), but for the most part these companies have diversified into consumer authentication, cloud-based authentication, and SSO services. RSA has de-emphasized its PKI offerings since its acquisition of Xcert in 2001.

Quest: Carving Its Niche in the IdM Market

Blogger: Mark Diodati

You may have read about Quest’s acquisition of NetPro today.  The NetPro acquisition follows Quest’s acquisition of Vintela in 2005, and PassGo Technologies in 2008.  The Vintela product (now Quest Authentication Services) owns a large piece of the Active Directory (AD) bridge market pie, which includes Centrify, Likewise, and Symark.  We’re seeing a lot of traction in large enterprises for this class of products.   These products provide authentication, authorization, and SSO services for non-Windows workstations and servers by integrating them into the AD environment.

The PassGo Technologies acquisition brought UNIX security (the jewel of the acquisition, now called Quest Privilege Manager for UNIX), strong authentication (the Defender product suite), privileged account management (SafeKeeping), web access management (Webthority), and enterprise SSO (Quest Enterprise Single Sign-On).  The acquisition of NetPro brings AD-centric provisioning tools (Access Manager, and Mission Control for management of Microsoft’s Identity Lifecycle Manager), as well as AD auditing, reporting, and security policy tools.

Many synergies exist between these technologies, and Quest has some integration work ahead.  Quest is strong in the AD Bridge and UNIX security markets.  Some products are not competitive, including the privileged account management and web access management products.  That said, Quest’s acquisitions demonstrate the company’s desire to provide identity and security tools with an emphasis on operating systems - a niche with lots of upside.