Openings, start-ups, new releases and acquisitions seem to be coming fast and furiously in the identity space. Here's a quick glance at the headlines with some links to more details.

Recent start-up Identity Engines launched its first product, the "Ignition" appliance a couple of weeks ago. This is, primarily, an identity-based, compliance-supporting, policy-enforcement engine. That's a very basic description, and one that really doesn't do it justice. So check the full functionality at the Identity Engines Web site.

Palo Alto's Fox Technologies isn't a new company, but it is in a new location. Recently hired CEO Max Seybold decided that the California Bay Area was more conducive to growing bananas (something he likes to do) and growing killer software applications (something he'd like the company to do) than Herndon, Va., the company's previous location. Fox is an old-line access-control provider, which is learning to adapt to the new identity-focused world. The company is well known in security circles but virtually unknown to the identity services crowd. Seybold is hoping to change that. Perhaps you can help - or Fox can help you. A visit to its Web site will give you all the details on its TFS ServerControl, WorkstationControl and ApplicationControl lines of products.

The biggest news to come out of last week's Digital ID World - Financial Services show wasn't even on the show schedule. I had arranged to meet with OctetString founder and CTO Clayton Donnelly just before the show opened (something we try to do at every major identity trade event) but he cancelled at the last minute because of unspecified "business reasons." It didn't take long to discover that the real reason was that Donnelly was deeply involved in acquisition talks with a major software company, one that has recently been acquiring most of the pieces to create a formidable identity division.

Oracle, it seems, has given Prakash Ramamurthy (who came to Larry Ellison's side as vice president of ID management and security products when Oracle acquired Oblix) the green light to put together a line-up to challenge Sun, IBM - and Microsoft. We'll have a lot more to say about this in the weeks and months to come.

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