IBM tries to rain on Novell and HP's parade

The cynic in me is crying out for this blog post, so here I go.

It's not that I enjoy pointing out my ex-employer's boneheaded moves, but...ok so I do just a little bit.

IBM issued a press release today harping on about:

"migration services and competitive migration pricing for abandoned HP Identity Center security software customers aimed at helping them benefit from IBM's broad capabilities for securing and efficiently running IT for their business."

For those that don't remember, HP got out of the Identity Management software business earlier this year and left their existing customers with a bit of a problem. Then along came Novell on their horse offering to ease the pain in partnership with HP.

From what I can gather by reading the Novell and HP partnership press release, existing customers get equivalent Novell Identity Management software for free (until the middle of 2009) and some migration tools jointly developed by HP and Novell. There is no mention of free services however, so I assume there's some cost there.

I didn't see the word "free" anywhere within IBM's announcement. So my question is, are they going to guarantee that the combined software and services costs are going to be less than Novell's? If not then what the heck is the point of offering to "Bail Out HP Security Software Customers" (part of the press release's headline)?

Oh, it gets better:

"In response to HP's discontinued identity management products, IBM offers competitive migration pricing for software and migration services through IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS)..."

Notice the problem? IBM ISS specialise in network security! Talk about picking the wrong business unit to offer up as the service provider. It would have made a bit more sense if they had said IBM Security and Privacy Services (which was the division I worked for before doing my IBM Tivoli thing) or IBM Software Group Services (who used to try to bill me out to customers because I knew stuff, even though I worked for the IBM Tivoli technical sales team - management usually said no by the way, except for a few times I had to run customer training sessions because they supposedly "asked for me by name"). Both these business units have had years more experience deploying the Tivoli Security suite of products. They also have a heck of a lot more people that have the necessary skills to do the work.

Here's a few speculative reasons why they might have made this announcement:

1. To piss Novell off a little bit and also hopefully catch all the existing HP customers that don't like Novell for some reason. Of course, there's nothing stopping customers from going to Oracle, CA or Sun. I dare say they'd willingly give existing HP customers "competitive pricing", which by the way means nothing becase it's not quantifiable.
   
2. A boneheaded IBM ISS executive was trying to figure out how to increase ISS revenue and decided on this particular tactic.
3. A boneheaded IBM executive was trying to figure out how to increase IBM revenue and decided on this particular tactic. The executive then thought that since it was security related, they would use the ISS business unit to deliver the solution because "hey, we acquired them 2 years ago as one of the world leaders in providing security solutions right?"

I wonder if the other consulting and services business units within IBM knew about this before the press release. My guess is not, but all you IBMers out there can correct me if I'm wrong. And if I'm right, there's going to be a few IBMers walking around today asking the same question and wondering why IBM has once again decided to compete with themselves.

This ISS rant assumes one thing of course, and that is that they actually find customers who want to switch from HP's Identity products to IBM Tivoli at a potentially higher monetary cost. I've already said I don't really see the financial value (I won't argue all the other bits because I'm trained to argue IBM Tivoli business value in my sleep).

In short, all of you working for ISS can just go about your business as if none of this ever happened. Well, all except the sales people who I'm sure will be told that they now have a new "innovative offering" to be peddling.

In other news buried within the same press release (I don't know why IBM keeps mashing multiple bits of news into the same press release), they announced:

"IBM Tivoli Security Policy Manager -- Brand new IBM software that provides customers the ability to develop centralized security policy management for managing application entitlements driven by compliance, data security and intellectual property protection. The adoption of SOA and Web 2.0 technologies poses unique security policy management challenges for managing user entitlements -- the loose coupling of services and mash-up applications across a business creates multiple policy management points, each of which may require its own administration. The IT reality to manage these policies and entitlements in an environment full of different vendors' technology is manual, error-prone and creates costly islands of security administration. Tivoli Security Policy Manager, available by end of 2008, provides standards-based, centralized application entitlement and SOA security policy management capabilities to help users strengthen access to new applications and services and improve policy compliance and operational governance."

Are you back from your eyes glazing over yet? Let me cut to the chase for you: the long marketing blurb basically means IBM Tivoli are releasing their Entitlement Management product later this year. I've seen it in action but am not at liberty to say anything at this stage thanks to the NDA. That said, it's probably not fair for me to be commenting anyway because I've only seen the Beta version, not the fully-fledged "we've tested the crap out of it and made it all nice and pretty" version. Well, maybe not the "nice and pretty" bit. If you've seen IBM software interfaces, they are rarely "nice and pretty". But I'm biased because I use a Macbook Pro as my personal computer :-)

If you work for IBM ISS, feel free to send any hate mail my way...

HP bows out of the identity game

According to the Burton Group, HP has decided to no longer actively sell their Enterprise Identity Management products (HP Identity Center).

They've never really been in the Enterprise Identity Management game. All they succeeded in doing over the years was to acquire a bunch of companies and then packaged them under the same marketing banner. The problem was they didn't know what to do with them from both a sales and strategic standpoint. It seemed like they were just "keeping up with the Joneses" because their main rivals (IBM, CA and to a certain extent BMC) all had Identity Management solution suites to go along with their systems management strengths.

Certainly back when I used to do this (for IBM) in Australia, HP was a non-factor. I'd only ever run into Oracle, Sun and sometimes CA. The reaction to HP was usually: "They do security? I thought they just sold servers". That was certainly the problem IBM had for a while, but they managed to get it right by sending the right marketing messages out there, making the right investments, getting their strategies more or less right (and executing them) and hiring the right people to drive the initiatives (both for Software Group and Security). HP did not. The past year I've spent working in the UK and across Europe with many organisations has further convinced me of this. HP are a non-factor in Identity Management across Europe, and in light of this latest development it seems that was the case with the rest of the world as well.

HP will not be going with the "end-of-life" option with its products at this stage. But they will not be actively pursuing new sales. Read the post yourself if you want the nitty gritty details. I'm not going to regurgitate them.

I will say one thing. If you have HP's Identity Software, what were you thinking?!

I'm sure the other vendors will come knocking on your door offering to rip out HP and put in their solution. Word of warning on this point. Don't rush into anything. Sure, I'd stop what you're doing with the HP solution and start thinking about a migration plan. But let this be a positive. It gives you a chance to re-evaluate the situation and your Identity and Access Management strategy. If you were anywhere along the path of putting the HP solution in, there will surely be lessons to take from the experience. Use these lessons to figure out what you need, what you don't need, and what your priorities are.

Hint: You don't need the big consulting firms. If you were actively involved with the project, you know what needs to be done and you have a lot of this knowledge already. If you did not, here's your chance to take the initiative back and own the project. Successful projects are driven from within because a big part of it is acceptance of cultural and procedural changes. Get whatever help you need from external consultants to fill in the gaps...but don't go paying a big consulting giant to re-architect your whole solution around another vendor's products. It's not about the technology anymore - at least not if you are comparing solutions from the big suite vendors.