Oracle Adds Identity Management Via BuyoutOracle Adds Identity Management Via Buyout

Oracle will expand the identity-management capabilities of its software using technology the company is acquiring through its buyout of Oblix Inc., Oracle executives said last week.

For more than two years, Oracle has offered its own identity-management software that worked exclusively with its products. The Oblix system will be sold as an enterprise identity-management application that can work with any database, application server, or application suite, including its own E-Business Suite apps and Oracle's PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards software, Thomas Kurian, senior VP of server technology, said in a conference call to reveal Oracle's acquisition of privately held Oblix for an undisclosed amount.

The Oblix system establishes a user's identity and assigns privileges that can be used across Oracle's product set. Oracle also will get Oblix's Web-services-management product, COREsv, which lets an Oblix administrator set security policies, then enforce them across Web services. Legacy apps will have to be configured to work with the Oblix products, but any app developed under a services-oriented architecture approach will be able to plug in Oblix for identity management. The products will be available immediately.

The acquisition allows Oracle to beef up its identity-management offering more quickly than if it built out its own product, AMR Research analyst Jim Shepherd says. But he doesn't expect it to make a difference in Oracle's competition with Siebel Systems Inc. and SAP. "At some point, it may be something that people expect an application vendor to include," but right now, customers expect to buy identity management from a systems vendor, such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, or Microsoft, Shepherd says.

Oblix CEO Gordon Eubanks, who took Symantec Corp. to the top of the utility software market before starting Oblix, won't become an Oracle employee but will work in an advisory capacity, Kurian says.

Oracle will maintain a distinct identity-management sales force. Kurian says Oracle also will train 1,500 value-added resellers, systems integrators, and independent software vendors to implement Oblix with the Oracle product set.