Atlassian is an Aussie company more famous for the Confluence Wiki and Jira bug tracking software than Crowd – their IdM product suite (if being generous) / stack of identity stuff (more on target).
Crowd includes an .NET SSO application framework (think raw web access management), some basic provisioning and OpenID integration. I heard about this great news last week and promptly forgot until I read the latest Slattery’s Watch email (company here, subscribe here)a few minutes ago. Since I’m lazy, here is their take verbatim (where’s the RT button??):
Atlassian has received a USD $60M investment from venture capital firm, Accel Partners for a minority equity position. Rich Wong, Partner at Accel Partners, will join Atlassian’s board. On the Atlassian blog, Mike Cannon-Brookes said that after being courted for years by many investors, Accel stood out because they understood Atlassian’s culture and values. Atlassian was co-founded in 2002 by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in Sydney, has been profitable since its inception, and until this round has received no outside financing. Mike and Scott will continue as co-CEOs of Atlassian. Atlassian has 225 employees based in Australia, North America and Europe. The funds from Accel will help expansion plans into Europe and Asia and to facilitate liquidity for employees.
And hopefully some more home grown idm.
News
accel partners, crowd, slatterys watch, SSO, WAM
Just saw an article over on Network World that Quest Software just bought ActiveEntry from Volcker Informatik AG. From a brief skim of the website, ActiveEntry looks like a heavily MS centric provisioning / workflow system – which sounds quite similar to Quest’s existing Active Roles server product. I haven’t had the chance to play with either technology, but I’ve come across a few companies in Australia running Active Roles server. I imagine Volcker is more active in Germany and Europe, hence a lower profile in Aus.
Dave Kearns’ original article on Network World also mentions they’re a player in the Gartner Magic Quadrant – in the visionaries quadrant which is quite good. I double checked the 2010 user provisioning quadrant thanks to Oracle here. Some of the comments on Volcker to save you a search were:
In the Visionaries quadrant, Volcker Informatik demonstrated noticeable improvement, partly due to:
- Significant innovation in its vision and approach to provisioning
- Improved servicing of its clients (predeployment and post-deployment)
- Its expanded partner base and expanded reach outside Germany
and
German-based company Volcker Informatik has made notable movement in the area of completeness of vision. It consistently provides a combination of innovative architectures and features, as well as a high-touch customer model, to deliver in a number of quality, low-maintenance solutions.
Given the overlap between the products, I’ll be keen to see if / how they’re integrated. On my superficial read of both product sites (emphasis on superficial) I’d say ActiveEntry provides ActiveRoles a shot in the arm for connectors, SPML capability and a virtual directory. There doesn’t seem to be anything around identity analytics.
Regardless, its good to see some investment in the identity space.
Identity and Access Management
microsoft identity, quest, SPML, takeover, virtual directory, Volcker
A little askew of idm, but of industry relevance, Japanese telco NTT has made a $3.6 billion offer for global IT services firm Dimension Data. What’s the relevance you may ask? Well in 2007 Verizon made a similar move and bought Cybertrust for its security consulting, assessment and managed security services starting the transformation to a services company (ala IBM?). DiData also provides similar security services, though possibly not as many or as much (feel free to correct me if required guys). Disclosure: I work for the integrated Cybertrust at Verizon Business in Hong Kong.
What Dimension Data (aka DD or DiData) does have is a far more extensive IT systems integration capability than the old Cybertrust, which might make a more natural transition for a Telco. Its probably going to be easier for the NTT sales guys, used to selling pipes and telco kit, to understand how to sell IT kit / boxes/ networking thingies than perhaps managed security services and ‘x’ days of vulnerability assessment.
However, if NTT are thinking of doing another Telstra and buying an integrator (Kaz) to work on internal projects, this could go pear-shaped very quickly.
And linking it back to Idm, DD deploys Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager, Quest ActiveRoles, Imprivata SSO and others.
More coverage -> Ovum not so sure on the takeover
This will definitely be interesting!
News
didata, ntt, telco