There have been quite a few product announcements recently which I haven't gotten to as yet but I wouldn't want you to think they aren't important, or at least useful. So today I'll give a quick rundown of them with pointers to where you can find out more. The announcements involve Novell Access Governance Suite, Sun's Identity Compliance Manager, Courion's PasswordCourier Jump Start, and a roadmap for NetPro.

We’ll start with the most recent: The Novell Access Governance Suite, which was announced this week. It comprises two products: the Novell Roles Lifecycle Manager and the Novell Compliance Certification Manager. Both products are based on an OEM relationship between Novell and Aveksa, a company we’ve covered before. According to Jim Ebzery, Novell senior vice president and general manager of Identity and Security Management, one major benefit of the system is that it promotes collaboration between IT and business interests to understand and manage risk and compliance – something that is frequently more honored in the breach. Go to the Novell Web site for more details.

Sun also made an announcement in this space with the release of Sun Identity Compliance Manager. This stand-alone product, one of the fruits of Sun's acquisition of Vaau, is described as “simple and cost-effective,” two adjectives your organization should care about. The system most likely integrates well with your existing identity management structure, even if it’s not Sun-based – a decided plus for many people. According to Mark Herring, vice president, Software Infrastructure at Sun, it was purposely designed that way. Sun wanted a solution that could be implemented by most organizations within 90 days – often within 60, according to Herring. Go to Sun's Web site for all the details and check Mark’s newsletter entry on “Software infrastructure initiatives.”

Courion released PasswordCourier Jump Start which it claims offer the fastest return on investment for a password management solution. This pre-packaged “off- the-shelf” solution offers software, fixed-price services and maintenance including:
* Full version of Courion’s PasswordCourier password management software.
* Rapid ROI with services delivered at a guaranteed price.
* The industry’s fastest time-to-value with deployment in as little as 30 business days.
* Integration with up to four target systems.
* One year maintenance and support, with the option to purchase multi-year maintenance at a generous discount.

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