Delta: Microsoft's identity management lead is under threat

Identity management underwent dramatic changes following the coronavirus pandemic - including the leading vendors' positions

Delta, the award-winning independent market intelligence service from Computing, has released updated research into the identity and access management space in the UK and Europe - with unbiased customer data showing Okta and AWS challenging long-time leader Microsoft.

Customer satisfaction in five areas IT leaders identified as important in choosing an identity management tool

Identity and access management (IAM) is a key business component. These tools both manage everything to do with user identities (i.e onboarding and offboarding), and protect and control access to corporate systems through features like single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and other password-less approaches.

IAM technologies became even more important in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic increased the scale of adoption, changed preferred deployment environments and forced many firms to re-evaluate their existing solutions. Cloud deployments spiked upwards with the widespread move to remote working, while on-premise fell - though hybrid cloud continues to lead them both.

Vendor comparisons

Microsoft remained the market leader. The company's on-premise IAM tool, Active Directory, is included for free in all Windows Server licences. The cloud version (Azure Active Directory) has a generous free tier, but it is the free inclusion in Windows Server that has given Microsoft such huge reach in the identity management market. More than two-thirds of the UK IT leaders responding to Delta's survey had trialled the service, and more than half had adopted it.

Click here to access the identity and access management research

Although uptake of any other product looks low by comparison, identity management specialists RSA and Okta are Microsoft's closest challengers in terms of sheer numbers, while AWS' customer feedback also positions it well. All three had similar trialling rates (13, 14 and 15 per cent, respectively), and adoption was slightly above the market trend of about 40 per cent uptake after trial: seven per cent of respondents followed through with RSA and Okta, and five per cent took AWS. This looks low, but are the second- and third-highest adoption rates in the market; it is difficult for any vendor to compete with Microsoft's massive reach.

RSA's token-based approach is now largely seen as legacy, but the company has a huge existing installed base that has carried it to success year after year. However, this appears to be on the decline, with trialling (formerly 20 per cent) and adoption (formerly nine per cent) both falling from our previous survey update. The company failed to excel in any of the key areas IT leaders identified (see above), and competitors could soon overtake it.

Okta moved up from sixth place to joint-second with RSA, more than doubling its previous three per cent market share. The company's independence from any cloud vendor or platform is a strong point, and integratation is a key adoption driver. As cloud continues to grow in importance in the identity management space, Okta's share is likely to continue to rise.

AWS' popularity (five per cent adoption) also relies on cloud. It is the world's leading cloud vendor, with an IAM product provided for free to all users. While its reach is not at the same level as Microsoft's, customers rate the company highly in several key areas. In many ways, AWS could be seen as the big winner of vendor comparisons, though it is worth noting that a free product will often be rated highly in cost metrics, which make up three of the five important elements we're highlighting here. The major downside of AWS IAM is lock-in; changing your cloud supplier will also mean needing to find a new identity management tool.

Much like AWS IAM, Google's Cloud IAM tool is free to all users of its Cloud Platform - although adoption of the Google cloud lags behind AWS in the enterprise space. It is a well-funded underdog, not approaching the market share of AWS or Microsoft Azure. However, Google's technical expertise is high, especially in AI and machine learning; as these technologies become more important, Google's performance is likely to climb. However, in 2020 it gained just one per cent market share (to four per cent overall), so the company has not reached a tipping point yet.

Oracle is the last of the big IAM vendors in the UK. The company's performance in terms of trialling (nine per cent) and adoption (five per cent) is almost unchanged from our previous survey (up one per cent), and completely in line with the industry average. The firm is said to be very good at customer retention through deals and discounts, but attracting customers in the first place is a different story. As shown in the chart, Oracle performs poorly in cost metrics, and its solution is also seen as overly complex and "outdated".

This is a sample of the information in Delta's Identity and Access Management research, which contains all of the latest information on the market, vendors and tools - including pricing information and feedback from customers who have used the solutions in anger. Click here to ask about access.