What is the MIIS Alliance?

The foundation for security and enterprise management

A new organization called the MIIS (Microsoft Identity Information Server) Alliance was introduced at last week's Directory Experts Conference in Vancouver. The alliance consists of five organizations, all of whom have good working relationships with Microsoft. Each of them uses MIIS in some way and (probably very importantly) they don't compete in the same markets or areas.

The five are: NetPro (http://www.netpro.com), Oblix (http://www.oblix.com), Oxford Computer Group (http://www.oxfordcomputergroup.com), PointBridge (http://www.pointbridge.com), and Vintela (http://www.vintela.com).

The group itself has a Web site (http://www.miis-alliance.com) but it's mostly a collection of papers and marketing materials from each of the partners in the group. The alliance did have a booth at the Directory Experts Conference alongside conference organizer NetPro and gold sponsor, Centify. In fact, it did seem a tad tacky to have Vintela personnel cheek by jowl with those from their major competitor, Centrify. Mostly the alliance members were passing out platitudes such as "our goal is to provide best of breed solutions and services."

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A new organization called the MIIS (Microsoft Identity Information Server) Alliance was introduced at last week's Directory Experts Conference in Vancouver. The alliance consists of five organizations, all of whom have good working relationships with Microsoft. Each of them uses MIIS in some way and (probably very importantly) they don't compete in the same markets or areas.

The five are: NetPro (http://www.netpro.com), Oblix (http://www.oblix.com), Oxford Computer Group (http://www.oxfordcomputergroup.com), PointBridge (http://www.pointbridge.com), and Vintela (http://www.vintela.com).

The group itself has a Web site (http://www.miis-alliance.com) but it's mostly a collection of papers and marketing materials from each of the partners in the group. The alliance did have a booth at the Directory Experts Conference alongside conference organizer NetPro and gold sponsor, Centify. In fact, it did seem a tad tacky to have Vintela personnel cheek by jowl with those from their major competitor, Centrify. Mostly the alliance members were passing out platitudes such as "our goal is to provide best of breed solutions and services."

Admittedly, the group was brought together somewhat hurriedly to take advantage of the natural interest in MIIS from the attendees to the conference, which not only had one track devoted to MIIS issues but also boasted most of Microsoft's MIIS gurus as speakers.

At this point, it may be no more than a joint marketing effort. It may never get beyond the "press release and a Web site" stage. But with Microsoft planning to roll the MIIS engine into the Windows Server platform, people with a perceived expertise in the MIIS market should find that they have more business than they know what to do with.

We'll keep an eye on this alliance and hope that it can develop into a more general industry group with membership open to all vendors with an interest in MIIS as an identity management platform. Should that happen then we'll most likely hear much more about the group. Otherwise, though, this might be the last time the MIIS Alliance gets mentioned, at least in this newsletter.

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Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.