So, since the big news from Quest Software announcing the acquisition of Symlabs, the independent virtual directory market has shrunk down to two. That would be Optimal IdM (my firm), and Radiant Logic. On tha tnote, I thought it would be a good time to browse the short history of virtual directory vendors and products and see just where they all are today:
| VENDOR | PRODUCT | STATUS | COMMENTS |
| OctetString | OctetString Virtual Directory – (Java) |
Acquired (Oracle) | Acquired by Oracle in 2005 (now Oracle Virtual Directory) |
| Sun | Virtual Directory Server – (Java) | Acquired (Oracle) | Acquired by Oracle in 2009 (no longer sold) |
| MaXware | MaXware Virtual Directory – (Java) | Acquired (SAP) | Acquired by SAP in 2007 (now SAP NetWeaver Identity Management Virtual Directory Server) |
| Symlabs | Virtual Directory Server – (C & Java) | Acquired (Quest) | Acquired by Quest Software in 2011 (will be embedded into some Quest product and no longer sold) |
| Identyx | (Penrose) – (Java) | Acquired (Red Hat) | Acquired by Red Hat in 2008 (Identyx sold a special version of the Open Source Penrose Virtual Directory) |
| Applied Identity |
ID-Unify | Acquired (Citrix) | Acquired by Citrix in 2010 (no longer on the market) |
| MyVD | My Virtual Directory – (Java) | Open Source | No updates in over 3 years (likely cannot keep up with commercial vendors) |
| Novell | Virtual Directory Services – (Java) | Never made it to market | Project was disbanded in 2005 |
| Radiant Logic |
Virtual Directory Server – (Java) | Commercially Available | Written in Java and requires Java run-times and third party binaries. |
| Optimal IdM |
Virtual Identity Server - (.NET) | Commercially Available | The ONLY .NET Virtual Directory on the market. Microsoft-Centric, but connections to heterogeneous systems. Since its initial roll-out in early 2008, the product has been proving to be a true innovator in new features and new ways to leverage virtual directory technology. Deep integrations into the Microsoft suite such as SharePoint 2007/2010, AD FS 2.0, UAG, and more. Optimal IdM has three recent head-to-head wins against Radiant Logic with Fortune 100 companies in 2011 alone! |
Now to return back to the Quest acquisition of Symlabs, it’s worth nothing that the intention of this acquisition was not for Quest to enter into the virtual directory market, but rather to leverage the technology to make their own products better. This tells me that they are pretty forward in their thinking of how to solve some common LDAP related issues that exist in many products on the market today. As Dave Kearns points out in this article, this is the same reason that many companies purchase these products. I believe this trend will continue, but what’s interesting to note is that as these vendors get swallowed up by the bigger vendors to solve their own internal issues, they are removing products from the market that are proving to be a vital part of the identity management technology stack. After this latest acquisition, Symlabs customers will be asking questions and perhaps seeking a replacement product. In order to ease this transition, Optimal IdM, will be making special offers to existing Symlabs customers to help them migrate to the Virtual Identity Server solution at a very low cost and no increase to their existing support expense. Stay tuned for more details or contact Sales for more information.
