From multiple points of view, Constellation’s analysts weigh in on salesforce.com’s October 15, 2013 entrance into the identity market. Steve Wilson provides a view from identity and security. Bruce Daley assesses the announcement from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and customer experience. Holger Mueller evaluates the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) implications. Alan Lepofsky examines the impact on the future of work and social business.
Constellation believes the identity offering by Salesforce.com adds value to its platform and creates greater “stickiness” by cementing the platform into routine user administration. Salesforce Identity follows industry Identity Management and authorization standards and consequently supports other products. Salesforce.com’s actions speak louder than words. Instead of relying on vendor lock-in for forcing “loyalty”, Identity Connect is open and interoperable. So salesforce.com would appear to be competing fairly and squarely on the quality of its service offering. Salesforce Identity may prove to enable more customers to build on the salesforce.com platform and enable new offerings via partners.