Why the Future of IDM Still Needs Us

In the last few years, the number of externally facing identity and access projects has skyrocketed, while the number of internally focused projects has plateaued. Unfortunately, identity products, standards, and technologies haven’t kept pace with this rapid market shift. As a result, even organizations that prefer to buy technology rather than build their own solutions are straining to retrofit products built for enterprise use to support the current “consumerized” model. Some industry experts have speculated that the tensions created between the existing product capabilities and the new identity requirements is so great that the entire IAM market needs to return to the architectural drawing board to reconcile. This line of reasoning suggests — to borrow Bill Joy’s phrase — that “The Future Doesn’t Need Us.” However, pressing the reset button on IAM dismisses years of critical experience in building identity systems that are now encoded into existing standards and products, and ultimately a dangerous path. In this presentation, Mike Neuenschwander, CEO for iC Consult Americas, discusses the use cases that identity systems must extend to support and how such solutions form the basis for the best approach to the consumerization of IAM.