Happy Thanksgiving to all of my U.S. readers, and there is a lot to be thankful for this year both for you, the consumers of identity applications and services as well as for the vendors of that software. The biggest vendors kept getting bigger this year – both through acquisition as well as by creating new services. At the same time, though, new vendors either were starting up or moving into the identity space for the first time. Just in the past couple of weeks, the number of identity-related announcements came along at a rapid pace.

There were updates to existing products, such as Centrify’s release of Centrify DirectControl 4, its tool for cross-platform management using Active Directory.

There were new products from old friends, such as SailPoint’s introduction of its identity data quality tool for partners to use to help cleanse identity data before beginning a new identity service rollout.

There were even brand new companies, such as start-up Demoxi, which released a beta version of its Internet “Demoxi Identity” tool, an aid to controlling online identity.

And there were new combinations and permutations such as the twin announcements from LogLogic that not only was it partnering with BMC (BMC will resell LogLogic’s log management and intelligence platform) but that there would be an even closer relationship with Novell. The LogLogic product would be bundled with Novell’s Sentinel and Identity Manager and sold by both companies.

Not all of the announcements were product news, either, as NetPro released the speaker lineup for next spring’s Directory Experts Conference. There are a lot of old friends as well as some new folks who promise to add even more to this information-packed event. Of course, the folks in Phoenix also announced some new products last week, but I’ll get to them next time.

In the event queue, a reminder that the Internet Identity Workshop is coming up in just a couple of weeks. If you have any interest in the “user-centric” identity space you ought to be there. Also, there’s an interesting Webinar coming up (Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 11:00 a.m. PST), “Remote Access and Strong Authentication – Joined at the Hip” featuring Stuart Rauch, director of product marketing at Secure Computing. Register here.

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