A marriage, a hot couple, and a single looking for a date at Catalyst

Identity Management This newsletter is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Special Report: Managing VoIP with a Lean Staff Discover how IT executives are managing the riding tide of VoIP and collaborative applications rollouts and operation despite lean network staffs with Network World's latest Special Report "VoIP and Beyond". Click here to download this Special Report. Network World's Identity Management Newsletter, 07/09/07 A marriage, a hot couple, and a single looking for a date at Catalyst By Dave Kearns Something I always look for at each year’s Catalyst conference is trends. Not, I hasten to add, those artificial induced “trends” where the Burton Group decides what would be good to talk about and then arranges the presentations – those things can only become trends if we’re still talking about them six months later. No, I mean those things that crop up in hallway conversations, or in the activities of vendors and/or clients – activities that come as somewhat of a surprise to the vendor’s competitors that are making the same sort of announcement. Here’s what I mean. Leading up to Catalyst, I told you about Fischer technology’s new strategy of marketing identity management as an outsourced service via application service providers. At Catalyst, Oracle announced an agreement with Wipro to market a new package of Managed Identity Services. At the tail end of the conference, identity vendor Mycroft and managed services provider Talisen Technologies announced a merger, to be called (very unimaginatively) Mycroft Talisen. Three announcements, three different arrangements, three quite different identity vendors: Oracle, which is very high on the radar; Fischer which seems to always be listed, if not highlighted, in provisioning discussions; and Mycroft, which has had only had two mentions in this newsletter over the past five years and then only as a partner of another vendor I was talking about. Still, all three have been very active in the provisioning market and all three are now leading the “identity-management-as-a-service” niche. Get Everyone from the CEO to the MySpace Generation to Support Your Security Plans. September 10-11, 2007 | The Fairmont Chicago How do you get everyone from the boardroom to the mailroom to comply with your security initiatives? Come collaborate with peers on critical business topics like this at The Security Standard-the only business summit for senior security executives. For the latest in planning and management strategies. Click here for more details. Click here for more details The major difference is the approach the three identity vendors have taken: Mycroft went all out for a full-scale wedding; Oracle has committed to a, for now, exclusive dating arrangement (but won’t go as far as calling it an “engagement”); Fischer, though, appears to be willing to “date” any service provider who is interested. Only time will tell which is the better strategy – or even if the trend itself is viable. Let’s see what those folks are talking about next year. Wedding plans also figured prominently in the activities of another “hot niche” vendor, and I’ll talk about that “trendy” (if not yet a trend) segment next time.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be found at Virtual Quill. Kearns is the author of two Network World Newsletters: Windows Networking Strategies, and Identity Management. Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these respective addresses: windows@vquill.com, identity@vquill.com . Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail. This newsletter is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Special Report: Managing VoIP with a Lean Staff Discover how IT executives are managing the riding tide of VoIP and collaborative applications rollouts and operation despite lean network staffs with Network World's latest Special Report "VoIP and Beyond". Click here to download this Special Report. ARCHIVE Archive of the Identity Management Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007