IBM Wednesday acquired Encentuate and will add that company’s single-sign-on technology to its Tivoli line of identity-management and access-management products.
IBM said Version 7.0 of its Tivoli Access Manager Enterprise Single Sign-On, which is expected to ship this fall, will be the first IBM-branded incarnation of Encentuate Single Sign-on. The current version of Access Manager includes SSO technology that IBM uses via an OEM agreement with Passlogix. There is also an option to run the current version with Encentuate’s software.
IBM also said it would be opening up the IBM Security Software Laboratory in Singapore, where Encentuate is headquartered. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Encentuate also develops technology for strong authentication called iTag, and tools for secure remote access. Its suite of identity- and access-management technology includes the enterprise SSO tools, as well as session management, audit/compliance, and user provisioning.
“Considering IBM is interested in applications and application management for the enterprise, this is a good complement, a good fit,” said Scott Crawford, an analyst with Enterprise Management Associates. “Encentuate has a good product set and penetration into some good verticals.”