Sun looks to Europe as it develops identity plans

LONDON - Regulatory compliance and the delivery of location-based mobile services are two areas in which Sun Microsystems will sharpen focus over the next 12 months as it seeks to build on the robust growth seen in its identity management business.

Demands in these areas are being led by European customers, and Sun will be working with telecommunications operators, consulting partners and its direct sales force in the region to deliver new offerings, according to Sara Gates, the company's vice president of identity management marketing.

"For the first time Europe is exceeding identity management growth over other regions," Gates said during an interview in London Friday.

The Texas-based executive was on a two-week European trip to talk to partners and clients on the heels of the launch of Sun's latest ID management product. The Sun Java Identity Auditor, rolled out in the U.S. in late January, allows companies to audit individuals' system-access activities. It is aimed at companies that want to meet legislative regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley financial and accounting disclosure act, which require businesses to report on who has access to critical information systems.

Many European organizations face complex issues, such as requirements for complying with cross-border regulations and the need to manage geographically dispersed staff, and these areas present new opportunities for Sun, Gates said. So too do European government and private-sector organizations that are seeking to address issues like migration, health care and e-government using identity management.

However, Gates said she sees Sun's product line as offering "horizontal solutions" and not specialized products for the public and private sectors.

"Instead, I see specialized knowledge," she said, indicating Sun's consulting partners and sales teams.

That said, small and medium-size businesses, which make up over two-thirds of the European market, require packaged identity management offerings that can automate a variety of business processes across borders, Gates noted. Sun is likely to target them with products like Auditor, which offers features such as automated certification reviews and compliance reports.

Security is also a hot topic when it comes to identity management, given the recent worldwide growth in identity theft. However, Sun plans to continue to partner with security providers rather than build in its own new security features. The company already counts on Symantec to provide security capabilities for Auditor, such as the ability to report unauthorized system access.

"We're seeing a collision between the worlds of security and identity management because ID brings intelligence to security," said Don Bowen, director of Sun's Directory Server Enterprise Edition.

RFID (radio frequency identification) also combines security and identity capability and Gates predicted that the next year will bring offerings that can, for instance, allow clients to secure a system by tracking its location and recording who has access to that system through identity management technology.

RFID has real security benefits because it links who somebody is to where they are located, Gates said.