Companies that make identity management software continue to be hot commodities in 2005, as they were in 2004, as BMC Software Inc. announced plans to acquire a company that makes user identity management and technology.
BMC on Monday said it plans to buy Calendra, a Paris-based maker of Web-based identity management technology.The news is just the latest evidence of consolidation in the identity management software market, as enterprise management software providers look to add better user and password management features to their products. Calendra is privately held and BMC did not release financial details of its acquisition.
BMC said it plans to add Calendra’s technology, including advanced workflow and user directory management features, to its Business Service Management (BSM) line of products. BMC will also combine Calendra’s identity management technology with its own user provisioning product, CONTROL-SA, allow customers to streamline the management of user identity, passwords and access permissions.
Calendra makes Directory Manager, which allows companies to use security rules and policies to automate many aspects of user management, such as assigning, managing and revoking access rights to resources on the Web and on an enterprise network. The product also has self-service features for users to manage and recover their own password, a costly support service for many organizations.
BMC said that Calendra’s technology will give it “complete lifecycle management” of employees, allowing administrators to create and manage access to a wide range of IT and physical assets, ranging from client server and legacy software applications to telephone systems and buildings or offices.
The identity and access management software space has been the site of frequent mergers and acquisitions in the last year, as makers of user identity management and provisioning technology join forces, and larger software vendors look to add identity and access management and user provisioning features to their product suites.
In October, Computer Associates International Inc. announced plans to buy identity and access management software maker Netegrity Inc. of Waltham, Mass., for US$430 million in cash.
