2019 started off with a very noteworthy acquisition in the identity and security space: the purchase of Janrain by Akamai. Janrain is a top vendor in the Consumer Identity market, as recognized in our recent Leadership Compass: https://www.kuppingercole.com/report/lc79059. Portland, OR-based Janrain provides strong CIAM functionality delivered as SaaS for a large number of Global 2000 clients. Boston-based Akamai has a long history of providing web acceleration and content delivery services. Last year, they entered into a partnership whereby Akamai provided network layer protection for Janrain assets.
Akamai has lately been focusing on increasing its market share of web security services in order to grow revenue. This acquisition will add identity layer functionality and increase visibility for the infrastructure company.
New account fraud and account takeover fraud are two of the chief concerns that companies in many industries, particularly finance and retail, must guard against. Bot management has been one of Akamai’s fastest growing services. The further integration of Akamai’s threat intelligence capabilities with Janrain’s CIAM solution has the potential to enhance consumer security for their clients.
As with all such acquisitions, there are two major possible routes their combined service roadmap can take:
- Integrate Janrain's CIAM functionality into Akamai services in a purely supportive way, or
- Integrate Janrain's CIAM functionality into Akamai services while continuing to promote and sell the CIAM services as a standalone solution
In many cases, purchasers in the IT business take the first option. The second option is more difficult to execute, but often offers a better long-term investment for both the purchaser and their clients. Akamai has a defined, well thought-out plan to pursue option 2, to extend the Janrain solution and continue to market it as a CIAM SaaS branded under Akamai.
Given the size of the CIAM market, KuppingerCole expects to see additional M&A activity as well new entrants in this space in the next 12-18 months. Keep up to date with the latest developments and research in cybersecurity and identity management by watching our blog: https://www.kuppingercole.com/blog.