2 Identity Startups to Watch

InfoWorld has issued a special report entitled, "15 Enterprise Tech Startups to Watch," and two of them are hardcore identity companies.

Sxip Identity is a perennial thought leader in the identity space - with their CEO, Dick Hardt, rising to internet fame with his "Identity 2.0" talk that he first gave about a year ago. But, as the InfoWorld piece highlights, Sxip's business also includes managing identity in a SaaS world (via their Sxip Access appliance). Sxip's innovations continue with their work around version 2.0 of SXIP (the simple extensible identity protocol) - a charge being led by their CTO, John Merrells. Its easy to see why Sxip Identity made the Infoworld list.

ConSentry is the identity company that you're less likely to have heard of. ConSentry is one of the new breed of NAC (network access control) companies that is leading the charge of identity-based NAC. NAC used to be seen as a non-identity problem, but companies like ConSentry are changing that, as they use deep packet inspection to enforce existing access and authorization policies. Expect to see a LOT more of the NAC world coming around to this playing field (think Juniper, Cisco, Vernier Networks, etc). And look for even more innovation as "traditional" IdM products and products from the NAC world begin to heavily influence each other. That larger wave, and ConSentry's approach to the problem, make them a great candidate for this list.