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Please contact:
Jeff Claudino
Director of Sales, Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
or via email at:
claudino@lightreading.com |
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| Identity Management: Telcos vs. Web 2.0 Titans |
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As network operators converge their mobile, wireline, and Internet businesses, managing subscribers' identities becomes a critical aspect of doing business. European and Asian network operators have been busy evaluating and implementing identity management (IdM) technology in order to offer a simplified sign-on process, along with some new services such as converged billing, email, and contact books. Beyond using IdM technology internally, network operators have a unique opportunity to turn their identity federation technology outward to become identity providers capable of offering identity verification services to Web content providers.
The window of opportunity for carriers to fully capitalize on their IdM investments will not be open indefinitely. Pressure is mounting from Web 2.0 companies such as Google, which also have an opportunity to control the authentication of user identity. If network operators do not find a way to build loyalty among their customers, they may find themselves relegated to providing nothing more than "dumb pipe" transport services. By some estimates, up to $1 trillion per year in revenue is at risk over the next several years.
Standards for identity federation and authentication are crucial for IdM to work properly, but the industry has not yet been able to settle on one set of specifications. The Liberty Alliance, which has 150 members, including many of the world's largest telcos, has developed standards that have been tested. However, Microsoft is leading an effort to develop a set of protocols called WS-* that compete in some cases with Liberty's work. To complicate matters, an open-source single sign-on (SSO) protocol called OpenID is gaining momentum in the Internet social networking sphere.
This report explains how IdM and identity federation have evolved during the past several years and describes the concept of an identity provider. It also examines the infrastructure needed to build an IdM platform and discusses the business case for deploying IdM technology. The report highlights some early IdM trials and services and evaluates potential competitors for the role of identity provider, and it compares four different identity federation protocols now being developed. Finally, the report profiles 11 vendors hoping to sell IdM solutions, including federation software, to network operators.
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| Sample research data from the report is shown in the excerpts below: |
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 Table of Contents (lri0607toc.pdf) |
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| Telecom operators are uniquely positioned to become identity providers for several reasons. First, they have a history as trusted providers of high-quality services, which gives them some instant credibility with users. They also know a great deal about their customers and their spending habits, and they already have billing relationships with them. In addition, many network operators own mobile networks, which gives them a unique authentication tool: the mobile phone. |
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| Network operators are definitely interested in the identity provider role, but they are not all moving at the same pace to adopt it. European and Asian network operators are far ahead of their U.S. counterparts. Many of them have already begun using IdM technology to converge their wireline, mobile, and Internet businesses, and they are beginning to look at selling new services based on the technology. Network operators are reluctant to discuss their plans for IdM because the technology is new and is viewed as a competitive tool. NTT, for example, will not discuss its experiences because it still considers IdM "strategic." The following figure provides a quick look at some early service provider implementations of IdM technology. |
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| [click on the image above for the full excerpt] |
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 Vendors profiled in this report include: CA Inc. (NYSE: CA); Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ); International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM); Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT); Nokia Siemens Networks B.V., a joint venture of Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI; Frankfurt: SIE); Novell Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL); Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL); Ping Identity Corp.; RSA Security Inc., a division of EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC); Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW); and Symlabs Inc. |
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| Total pages: 21 |
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| To view reports you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader. If you do not have it, it can be obtained for free at the Adobe web site. |
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