The company is working with a leading group of SIs, IHVs and ISVs that are delivering products and services that enable customer identity management solutions. All these industry partners are working with customers to implement successful identity management solutions based on Active Directory® and newly introduced products.

User authentication is fundamental part of IT security, and a widely adopted system would ease management and deployment of both hardware and software solutions within organisations. For service providers and vendors, it enables them to provide accurate accounting for pay per use or other similar on-demand pricing models.

Microsoft claims that technologies from companies such as Business Layers, DigitalPersona, M-Tech Information Technology, Oblix and OpenNetwork Technologies have been designed to easily interoperate with Microsoft's identity management offerings and to provide customers with well-integrated solutions that deliver a best-of-breed approach to solving identity management problems. In addition, Microsoft says that many of the industry's leading SIs, including Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, ePresence Inc., Ernst & Young, Fujitsu Services, HP Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Unisys Corp., are working with them to deliver a full range of assessment, planning and implementation services.