Burton Group TIps Off IBM Scientist About Microsoft AD Patent Violation

I was taken back by an article I read today about a former IBM scientist, William Reid, who claims that he created the "technology" behind Active Directory, and that he owns the patent behind it.

OK...so what's the next logical step for Mr. Reid?!

Of course...sue Haliburton! And not for the obvious reasons Haliburton should be sued...but because their Identity Management system is based on it. Pretty interesting logic there, Bill! Using that logic, you could sue almost every company out there...go sue GM and Charles Schwab while you're at it. Too late...he already did.

The most bizarre aspect of the story, is that he got the 'tip' from Catalyst!

In an interview, Reid, who says he worked on artificial intelligence for IBM from 2000 to 2002, says he determined that GM, Schwab, and Halliburton were violating his patent after visiting a trade show. Reid says he watched presentations by IT officials from the companies while attending the Burton Group's Catalyst conference.

There's nothing quite like a disgruntled, clueless IBM scientist. (No offense to the happy IBM scientsts out there.)

Identity Management's Business Prowess

It's refreshing to see the strength of the Identity market in the following excerpts. The first is an analysis on Oracle stock by Rob Black. The second is a quote from Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz:

Rob Black submits: Expect an in-line Oracle (ORCL) quarter in a historically difficult period. Expect to see growth from all product segments across all geographies, with better contribution from Europe than reported in recent periods. Analysts believe Fusion Middleware focus and growth will continue for the foreseeable future, highlighted by strength in Identity Management opportunities. Analysts are increasing our price target for ORCL to $19 from $17 based on our revised DCF, which includes a reduced discount rate (due to reduced risk free rate) and increased confidence in a more promising cash flow growth scenario.

Growth to Oracle is ultimately attributed to Identity. Now that is pretty big stuff. The entire company stock is expected to go from 17 to 19 ultimately driven by an upswing in identity sales. Just to put this into perspective, this is a company that could bankroll buying Peoplesoft at $10B and Siebel at almost $6B. In the past year or so, it has picked up some dinosaurs in the Identity world: Octetstring, Thor and Oblix.
The second quote is from Sun CEO:

"As a CEO, nothing is more important to me than security and identity management," Schwartz said. "It's the heart of SOX, HIPAA and other regulations across the world. Who has access to what information often closely relates to who pays for that information and who's liable for that information."

That's a wonderful shout-out for identity. Given that the quote was taken in an interview Schwartz gave in relation to Sun's tight relationship with Accenture (and how they really need Accenture as a consulting arm to compete with IBMs Global Services division) - nonetheless - I'll take it! If that were the case, it would speak to the strength of the services market for Identity - which in turn speaks to the software market as well. Either way, it's a good sign for things to come.