Tivoli Hits Express Lane

IBM plans to release this month a new SMB-tailored version of its Tivoli identity management software for controlling user access to corporate data.

The new Tivoli Identity Manager Express targets companies with up to 5,000 users and carries a lower price tag than IBM Tivoli’s enterprise offering.

“This is absolutely important. We see a lot of SMB customers who are tight on budgets and don’t have either the need or the budget for the bigger, more expensive Tivoli. They do need something that’s easier to manage and implement,” said Alex Ivkin, identity and access management architect at MSI Systems Integrators, Minneapolis.

“The feedback was very consistent from partners—that we needed to introduce a product into the market that was more easily deployed, with less customization needed out of the box and with a quicker time to value,” said Joe Anthony, IBM Tivoli’s director of identity management.

Tivoli Identity Manager Express carries a list price of $24 per user, down from the $32 per user price of its enterprise sibling. The software is designed to run on a single server and can be deployed in less than two hours, according to IBM.

As with Express versions of IBM’s other middleware offerings, this product sports a simplified user interface and includes features such as customizable dashboard views that were added in response to customer feedback.

Tivoli Identity Manager Express helps automate the process of setting up and cancelling employee user accounts and passwords. Administrators can use the software to track employees’ roles as they move throughout an organization and to restrict access permissions to those appropriate to an employee’s current position.

IBM estimates that more than half of existing corporate user accounts are “orphaned,” left active after employees have left the company or moved into new roles.

With regulatory compliance and security risks regularly topping the list of corporate IT challenges, customer interest in access-control software is growing, Anthony said.

“If you tell your auditors you have controls in place, you’d better have them,” he added.

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