Ping Identity's been doing a lot of good work in the Identity space of late. Their latest is being first to market (at least I think they are) to launch a cross-over solution for Microsoft Windows Cardspace and OpenID in the form of SignOn.com.
They are perhaps the most active startup in the Enterprise Identity Management space (the guys at Securent might beg to differ) and are crossing over into the User Centric Identity arena of late, most notably with their interoperability tests at the RSA Conference earlier this year. They're also frequently mentioned by Kim Cameron on his blog in relation to work they do with Federated Identity and Cardspace, so it's not really surprising that they've launched SignOn.com
I was browsing their site when I came across a press release from mid June which mentions that their PingFederate product is now SAP NetWeaver certified. This jumped out at me because of my recent train of thought relating to SAP.
I wonder if SAP has its eyes on Ping Identity as an acquisition target? It would have fit right in with the NetWeaver story even without having PingFederate certified against it. Add the foray into the User Centric Identity space and it would give SAP a competitive advantage against the other established Enterprise Identity Management vendors. Why? Because very few of them are doing very much about it. Novell and Sun come to mind. The other vendors are too busy trying to acquire more companies to fill out their risk and compliance portfolios.
If I made the decisions at SAP, this is something I'd be pursuing aggressively. Then again, I don't run a multi-billion dollar company so what would I know.
Showing posts with label sap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sap. Show all posts
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
SAP Identity will take time
I gave my 2 cents on the SAP acquisition of MaXware when it happened and noted that it wouldn't be long before they officially announce their entry as an Identity Management vendor.
Well they've now publically stated their intent. It'll take them awhile before they truly understand the space however. It's not surprising given that this is new to them and they've been too busy milking the SAP R/3 cash cow for so long. Oracle's Identity Architect Nishant Kaushik points this out (the "not understanding the space" part, not the cash cow bit) in his latest blog post following his observations from the recent Burton Group Catalyst conference. He's right, although he does have a vested interest in pointing this out given that SAP and Oracle go head to head in almost everything.
What SAP may not yet realise (but will soon enough) is that they have a distinct advantage over many of the other Identity Management (IDM) vendors when it comes to user management and provisioning, especially around anything to do with people and entitlements. In other words, what people should be getting access to within the environment and how they get this access.
Their competitive advantage is actually SAP R/3 itself. Almost every IDM deployment drives their user provisioning, updates and de-provisioning processes through their HR systems. In most cases this is going to be SAP or Oracle (typically Peoplesoft). It makes sense of course. If a person is hired, the first place they appear is in the HR system. When they leave, they get taken out of HR. It is for this reason that Oracle wasted no time in closely integrating their IDM suite with their HR applications and also took the trouble to cross certify them.
If SAP is to become a serious IDM vendor and challenge the likes of IBM, Oracle, Sun, CA and BMC they need to start with their existing R/3 install base. This seems like a no-brainer. Sales 101. Go after the people you already have relationships with and up-sell your products. What they'll need to be able to do however, is convince the install base that SAP IDM is the way to go because of the tight coupling with R/3 right from the underlying technology through to the business processes. SAP will not beat the other vendors on functionality, at least not for now.
They've essentially bought a meta/virtual directory product with synchronisation capabilities and minimal provisioning functionality (MaXware) and another product to tie in compliance (Virsa). There isn't enough functionality to compete from a holistic standpoint. They will need to prove that they hook into the SAP platform better than anyone else out there (and they really should because it's their own software) and they will also need to sell customers on their commitment to an overall IDM strategy and then go out and buy companies to fill the gaps, of which there are many.
In short, SAP need to focus on 2 things before being able to be a serious threat in the IDM game:
Well they've now publically stated their intent. It'll take them awhile before they truly understand the space however. It's not surprising given that this is new to them and they've been too busy milking the SAP R/3 cash cow for so long. Oracle's Identity Architect Nishant Kaushik points this out (the "not understanding the space" part, not the cash cow bit) in his latest blog post following his observations from the recent Burton Group Catalyst conference. He's right, although he does have a vested interest in pointing this out given that SAP and Oracle go head to head in almost everything.
What SAP may not yet realise (but will soon enough) is that they have a distinct advantage over many of the other Identity Management (IDM) vendors when it comes to user management and provisioning, especially around anything to do with people and entitlements. In other words, what people should be getting access to within the environment and how they get this access.
Their competitive advantage is actually SAP R/3 itself. Almost every IDM deployment drives their user provisioning, updates and de-provisioning processes through their HR systems. In most cases this is going to be SAP or Oracle (typically Peoplesoft). It makes sense of course. If a person is hired, the first place they appear is in the HR system. When they leave, they get taken out of HR. It is for this reason that Oracle wasted no time in closely integrating their IDM suite with their HR applications and also took the trouble to cross certify them.
If SAP is to become a serious IDM vendor and challenge the likes of IBM, Oracle, Sun, CA and BMC they need to start with their existing R/3 install base. This seems like a no-brainer. Sales 101. Go after the people you already have relationships with and up-sell your products. What they'll need to be able to do however, is convince the install base that SAP IDM is the way to go because of the tight coupling with R/3 right from the underlying technology through to the business processes. SAP will not beat the other vendors on functionality, at least not for now.
They've essentially bought a meta/virtual directory product with synchronisation capabilities and minimal provisioning functionality (MaXware) and another product to tie in compliance (Virsa). There isn't enough functionality to compete from a holistic standpoint. They will need to prove that they hook into the SAP platform better than anyone else out there (and they really should because it's their own software) and they will also need to sell customers on their commitment to an overall IDM strategy and then go out and buy companies to fill the gaps, of which there are many.
In short, SAP need to focus on 2 things before being able to be a serious threat in the IDM game:
- Integrate the current capabilities seamlessly into their application software stack and do it better than anyone else out there and sell customers on the fact that IDM should be driven by their existing SAP R/3 deployments.
- Fill out the big gaps in their IDM portfolio. There are many holes.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
SAP Identity Manager is here
The day has arrived. Well, once the acquisition closes it will. SAP is an Identity Management vendor. A few days ago, they announced the acquisition of MaXware.
The way the market's been going, it was only a matter of time. For SAP to keep up with the Joneses (namely Oracle), they had to build out their software portfolio. They cannot be considered an enterprise software vendor until they do. They still do not have the reach that Oracle has, but I have a feeling the long term vision is to get there. They will not survive otherwise because Oracle will blow them out of the water.
For so long, SAP has only been able to watch as Oracle gobbled up competitor after competitor as they executed their strategy of becoming the world's biggest software vendor. SAP's cash cow was also beginning to dry up and the executives obviously knew that. The question was what were they going to do about it. You can only rely on revenue from support, services and upgrades to old software for so long. SAP have been fortunate in being able to rely on their dominance of the ERP and CRM space from the 90s. Those days are fast running out and for SAP, it was a matter of evolve or fall way behind. The reason for a customer to buy Oracle over SAP of late has become much more compelling. If you buy SAP, you get CRM and ERP software. Well, they have a Portal, but that's a commodity nowadays. They also have Netweaver, but that's just a fancy name for the infrastructure which supports their web service initiatives. As a customer, I'd get a lot more from Oracle. If I buy an ERP or CRM system from Oracle, I have the support to be able to leverage an Application Server (ok, SAP have one too, but who runs anything on that except SAP?), a Relational Database, Portal, Grid Computing, Identity Management, Business Intelligence etc. Their software stack is much more compelling. Sure, there is integration to be done, but there's more chance of having the integration pieces fit together...or at least be able to kick Oracle if bits don't work.
SAP have been falling behind for awhile and they knew it. Enterprise Identity Management is a must nowadays. You cannot run a mid to large size environment without proper Identity Management. One could even argue that it's on the way to becoming commoditised. In fact, I've suggested in the past that it would sooner rather than later. And who are SAP's major customers? Mid to large size customers!
If a company wants to be considered to be a serious software vendor, they need Identity Management capabilities - much like they needed an application server product in the 90s. We're no longer talking about people that want security. Identity Management has become a business problem. It is also an application development problem. It is also a process problem. The list goes on. I'm not saying anything new here. Those that know this space know that Identity Management projects touch everything in the enterprise. It defeats the purpose of the project if it doesn't...or at least is there isn't a long term plan to have it "hook into" everything and vice versa.
SAP have taken a step towards catching up with Oracle. In doing so however, they've also put themselves in the firing line of IBM (more than before - they already compete in the Portal space), CA, Sun, BMC, HP and EMC/RSA. This now places an interesting dynamic between SAP and the vendors on the list who are key SAP partners. IBM for example, are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) SAP implementation partners in the world. It'll also cause more interesting battles internally within IBM as well, with the services teams potentially being able to choose SAP Identity Management for their customers over IBM Tivoli (they IBM WebSphere guys might be able to identify with this as they probably already went through this with the Portal product). This is of course nothing new for IBM. The services arm of IBM has long had to deal with the wrath of IBM Software Group when they propose a competitor's software solution. This just moves SAP further up the "don't you dare suggest competitive software to your customer" list.
MaXware alone doesn't give SAP the Identity pieces to be a dominant player in this space however. They are a few pieces away from seriously competing with the other big Identity vendors. MaXware doesn't give them access control and authorisation components for example. In fact, I wonder why they didn't go after a company like Courion. They have a more complete solution set. Maybe it really isn't their intention to play in this space (although if it's not, then they have some serious strategy issues).
SAP aren't quite there yet in terms of competing with Oracle from an enterprise software stack perspective. They are also not quite there in the middleware stakes in trying to compete with IBM (and of course Oracle). SAP need a few more pieces before they can seriously challenge the enterprise software accounts of IBM and Oracle and start trying to displace the enterprise software agreements so prevalent in large customers, which is where all the big dollars are. It'll be interesting to see where they head next.
If I were running SAP (not that anyone would ever listen to me), I wouldn't focus so much on the catch up and start to look longer term at what's next on the horizon. Databases are a commodity for example. I doubt SAP will worry about trying to fill that gap. They cannot afford to or they'll be playing catchup forever. Remember, acquisitions are followed by integration and that takes a lot of time and money. They should ignore the commoditised components, fill out pressing customer needs (where it makes sense to) and start to build or acquire the pieces that will be required in the enterprises of 2010. If SAP are still viewed primarily as an ERP/CRM vendor in 2010, they're in real trouble.
I doubt they will ever die. Too many customers have too much invested in SAP deployments around the world. It's sort of like the mainframe. It's still around because it costs too much to move off it. It's cheaper to just build around it. But if SAP don't evolve, they won't grow. They'll just be stuck supporting existing customers and making small amounts of revenue through support and upgrade contracts (comparatively to what they would through making new software sales). Why? Because if they don't grow, new customers will buy Oracle.
The way the market's been going, it was only a matter of time. For SAP to keep up with the Joneses (namely Oracle), they had to build out their software portfolio. They cannot be considered an enterprise software vendor until they do. They still do not have the reach that Oracle has, but I have a feeling the long term vision is to get there. They will not survive otherwise because Oracle will blow them out of the water.
For so long, SAP has only been able to watch as Oracle gobbled up competitor after competitor as they executed their strategy of becoming the world's biggest software vendor. SAP's cash cow was also beginning to dry up and the executives obviously knew that. The question was what were they going to do about it. You can only rely on revenue from support, services and upgrades to old software for so long. SAP have been fortunate in being able to rely on their dominance of the ERP and CRM space from the 90s. Those days are fast running out and for SAP, it was a matter of evolve or fall way behind. The reason for a customer to buy Oracle over SAP of late has become much more compelling. If you buy SAP, you get CRM and ERP software. Well, they have a Portal, but that's a commodity nowadays. They also have Netweaver, but that's just a fancy name for the infrastructure which supports their web service initiatives. As a customer, I'd get a lot more from Oracle. If I buy an ERP or CRM system from Oracle, I have the support to be able to leverage an Application Server (ok, SAP have one too, but who runs anything on that except SAP?), a Relational Database, Portal, Grid Computing, Identity Management, Business Intelligence etc. Their software stack is much more compelling. Sure, there is integration to be done, but there's more chance of having the integration pieces fit together...or at least be able to kick Oracle if bits don't work.
SAP have been falling behind for awhile and they knew it. Enterprise Identity Management is a must nowadays. You cannot run a mid to large size environment without proper Identity Management. One could even argue that it's on the way to becoming commoditised. In fact, I've suggested in the past that it would sooner rather than later. And who are SAP's major customers? Mid to large size customers!
If a company wants to be considered to be a serious software vendor, they need Identity Management capabilities - much like they needed an application server product in the 90s. We're no longer talking about people that want security. Identity Management has become a business problem. It is also an application development problem. It is also a process problem. The list goes on. I'm not saying anything new here. Those that know this space know that Identity Management projects touch everything in the enterprise. It defeats the purpose of the project if it doesn't...or at least is there isn't a long term plan to have it "hook into" everything and vice versa.
SAP have taken a step towards catching up with Oracle. In doing so however, they've also put themselves in the firing line of IBM (more than before - they already compete in the Portal space), CA, Sun, BMC, HP and EMC/RSA. This now places an interesting dynamic between SAP and the vendors on the list who are key SAP partners. IBM for example, are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) SAP implementation partners in the world. It'll also cause more interesting battles internally within IBM as well, with the services teams potentially being able to choose SAP Identity Management for their customers over IBM Tivoli (they IBM WebSphere guys might be able to identify with this as they probably already went through this with the Portal product). This is of course nothing new for IBM. The services arm of IBM has long had to deal with the wrath of IBM Software Group when they propose a competitor's software solution. This just moves SAP further up the "don't you dare suggest competitive software to your customer" list.
MaXware alone doesn't give SAP the Identity pieces to be a dominant player in this space however. They are a few pieces away from seriously competing with the other big Identity vendors. MaXware doesn't give them access control and authorisation components for example. In fact, I wonder why they didn't go after a company like Courion. They have a more complete solution set. Maybe it really isn't their intention to play in this space (although if it's not, then they have some serious strategy issues).
SAP aren't quite there yet in terms of competing with Oracle from an enterprise software stack perspective. They are also not quite there in the middleware stakes in trying to compete with IBM (and of course Oracle). SAP need a few more pieces before they can seriously challenge the enterprise software accounts of IBM and Oracle and start trying to displace the enterprise software agreements so prevalent in large customers, which is where all the big dollars are. It'll be interesting to see where they head next.
If I were running SAP (not that anyone would ever listen to me), I wouldn't focus so much on the catch up and start to look longer term at what's next on the horizon. Databases are a commodity for example. I doubt SAP will worry about trying to fill that gap. They cannot afford to or they'll be playing catchup forever. Remember, acquisitions are followed by integration and that takes a lot of time and money. They should ignore the commoditised components, fill out pressing customer needs (where it makes sense to) and start to build or acquire the pieces that will be required in the enterprises of 2010. If SAP are still viewed primarily as an ERP/CRM vendor in 2010, they're in real trouble.
I doubt they will ever die. Too many customers have too much invested in SAP deployments around the world. It's sort of like the mainframe. It's still around because it costs too much to move off it. It's cheaper to just build around it. But if SAP don't evolve, they won't grow. They'll just be stuck supporting existing customers and making small amounts of revenue through support and upgrade contracts (comparatively to what they would through making new software sales). Why? Because if they don't grow, new customers will buy Oracle.
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