HP has agreed to acquire identity management software partner Trustgenix, the latest in a series of acquisitions by major vendors that want to let their customers safely access information across corporate boundaries.
Trustgenix makes single sign-on software that lets corporate customers link multiple accounts with different providers on the Internet so that secure user authentication occurs only once. Trustgenix supports all major federation standards, including SAML, Liberty ID-WSF, Liberty ID-FF and WS-Federation.
The deal makes sense for HP, which already uses Trustgenix software for OpenView Select Federation.
When a user navigates to different sites belonging to the same federation,
Select Federation recognizes the user and is able to provide a secure,
personalized experience based on the user’s preferences and identity.
Accordingly, HP will tuck the Santa Clara, Calif., company’s assets into its
OpenView software portfolio to let enterprise customers help their business
partners secure access to information residing on different systems.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but HP expects the
deal will close within the next 30 days.
The purchase is the Palo Alto, Calif., systems giant’s latest bid to bulk up
its management software suite and comes on the heels of its purchases of storage management specialist AppIQ and asset management provider
Peregrine Systems.
Identity federation appeals to companies in the telecommunications,
financial services, manufacturing and government industries, which is why
major vendors like HP, Oracle, BMC Software, CA and IBM have been shoring up
their ID management ranks.
To be sure, Trustgenix isn’t the first foray into ID management for HP.
The company bought
TruLogica in 2004, adding the ability for OpenView to manage user privileges
across multiple technology systems.
Earlier this month, Oracle bought
Thor Technologies and OctetString for an undisclosed sum after snatching
up Oblix, a provider of single sign-on utilities for Web services.
