Comments on Ian Yip's Security and Identity Thought Stream: What does an IBM acquisition of Sun mean for Ident...

Thanks for the comments all.Regarding the Sun Dire...

2009-03-20T11:51:00.000+11:00

Thanks for the comments all.

Regarding the Sun Directory Proxy Server, Tivoli Directory Server (TDS) has proxying capabilities of its own. Combine that with Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) and Tivoli will claim that there's nothing the Sun Directory can do that Tivoli's does not. In other words, no matter how much it "kicks ass", I really don't see IBM pushing TDS down the pecking order.

The same argument stands for OpenSSO. It could very well be the best product of its kind out there (not that I'm saying that it is, because it's highly subjective when 2 competitive products are fairly mature and stable) I really don't see IBM pushing Tivoli Access Manager (TAM) and Tivoli Federated Identity Manager down the pecking order for OpenSSO for the reasons I've pointed out in the blog post.

You forgot the Sun Directory Proxy Server :) The S...

2009-03-20T10:12:00.000+11:00

You forgot the Sun Directory Proxy Server :) The Sun directory/proxy servers simply kick ass and have for years. Just when I didnt think they could top themselves, Sun comes out with a real gem... opensso.

Ian, nice write up but I agree it's a waste of tim...

2009-03-20T08:09:00.000+11:00

Ian, nice write up but I agree it's a waste of time to write about speculation, though I'll add my 2 cents for the heck of it.

First, IBM is the market leader in IAM in the latest 2007 report [IDC #213650] with 12.4% or $389M+. The next closest is CA with 10.3% who are also declining. Sun sit 16th in the market with less than $44M in revenues and 1.4% market share. Needless to say that what ever IBM do with Sun's products, it won't have much of an impact on the market as a whole.

You are correct, IBM will take the bits of SUN [the whole company] they want and slowly discard the rest. IBM are the best company in the world in terms of making M&A work, so I'm not worried [at least as an IBM employee] about any integration issues.

That is not to say IBM are perfect or that if the acquisition went forward it would be 100% smooth, fact is it won't. Like anything in IT 'stuff' is bound to happen.

However, in terms of IAM, the acquisition will only bolster the current software portfolio and increase IBM's total dominance in the IAM market, increasing their revenue by $100m+ more than their second closest competitor.

Nice write-up.

2009-03-19T07:43:00.000+11:00

Nice write-up.