Identity relationship management market to exceed $50 billion by 2020
ForgeRock announced today that the identity relationship management (IRM) market, focused on managing customer interactions across any device or environment, will exceed $50 billion by 2020.
This high growth market trajectory reflects the growing need for an effective IRM solution as CIOs shift investment from internal identity projects focused on “keeping things out” to massive external identity projects focused on increasing customer engagement and monetizing those opportunities.
Identity services must be in place regardless of sector — retail, finance, insurance, healthcare, government, cloud service, education — in order to extend business reach via social, mobile, cloud, and the Internet of Things.
According to networking giant Cisco, an estimated 8.7 billion things were connected to the Internet in 2012, expecting to grow to 50 billion Internet-connected things by 2020. ForgeRock estimates that every Internet-connected thing (PC, tablet, mobile phone, car, refrigerator, TV etc.) will require identity services in order to make real-time user access decisions based on context (location, IP address, familiar device, etc.). As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, ForgeRock expects an increase in the number of applications serving each device, driving an increase in identity revenue per device — approximately $50 billion in total opportunity.
“Oracle, IBM and CA are the legacy vendors when it comes to identity” said Scott McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems and advisor/investor to ForgeRock. “Oracle missed a big opportunity to take advantage of the Sun open source platform and CA and IBM have not opened up their identity platforms to compete in the modern era of open, interoperable software. ForgeRock is a next generation, open source Identity Relationship Management platform built on the telco grade scale and reliability of Sun technology. We all know how these stories end — mankind wins out over any single proprietary vendor. ForgeRock is building the next generation platform for mankind.”
To celebrate the massive opportunity, ForgeRock today surprised RSA Conference attendees with a flash mob, which drew attention to the growing significance of Identity with the lead-in message “Nobody puts Identity in a Corner,” playfully referencing the hit classic film “Dirty Dancing.”
The group, made up of ForgeRock employees, volunteers, and professional dancers alike, performed on the streets outside the Moscone Center multiple times, dancing to a mashup of music from “Dirty Dancing” and “Men in Black” while RSA attendees gathered to see what was going on.
“ForgeRock’s vision is to transform markets by facilitating increased access to customers and partners though our next-generation IRM platform,” said Mike Ellis, CEO, ForgeRock. “We are seeing a major disruption in the industry as organizations roll-out more dynamic services to customers, prospects, and suppliers, that react to real-time information about the user identity and the context of that user interaction.”
