On IT-business alignment and related things

Well, better late than never. SAP today announced the acquisition of privately-held MaXware, a supplier of identity management infrastructure. Back in June 2005, I discussed SAP Venture’s (its VC arm) investment in another identity management specialist: Ping Identity and at the beginning of 2006 predicted that SAP would enter the identity management acquisition fray. My timing was off but SAP has finally done it. In light of the investment in Ping Identity I was somewhat surprised by the choice of MaXware rather than Ping Identity but I think geography may have had a part to play. It is going to be easier for SAP to integrate a Norwegian company than one based in the US.

MaXware is hardly a new entrant in the market: the company has been around for over 15 years, initially providing virtual directory solutions. The company has subsequently built on that foundation to add identity lifecycle management, provisioning and federated web single sign-on. As a result MaXware provides SAP with a pretty comprehensive set of capabilities to bulk up its NetWeaver and broader application proposition, particularly when it comes to competing with arch-rival Oracle which has done a good job with acquiring and subsequently integrating identity management capabilities as part of Fusion Middleware.

SAP still has some way to go, obviously, when it comes to actually delivering an integrated proposition. The fact that both companies are European should help. However, I note that SAP does not appear on the list of MaXware partners and the press release doesn’t mention “building on the existing strong partnership” or “exploiting existing integration between the companies’ solutions” (or other such press release-ese) so its difficult to gauge the extent of the technology integration work ahead. Customers and potential customers should look for detailed integration roadmaps.