Novell Nsure Finds Customer Success, Market Leadership

Just over a month after their public unveiling, Novell® Nsure™ secure identity management solutions are enjoying rapid adoption among enterprise, government and education customers and drawing praise from industry analysts. Novell today highlighted yet another major customer deployment based on its Nsure solutions and touted the company's position as a leader in the provisioning market - a key segment of secure identity management - according to a new report by research and consulting firm Burton Group.

 

The latest in a string of successful Nsure deployments, one of the largest counties in Florida, Hillsborough County, has partnered with Novell to provide secure identity management for its 5,000 employees. Coordinating the efforts of more than 40 departments and 10 outside agencies serving nearly 1 million residents was a daunting task for the county - especially ensuring employees across all these groups had timely access, including after-hours access, to the systems they needed. Working with Novell's consultants, Hillsborough County created a secure employee portal, providing access to collaboration tools, financial and HR information and other applications. Now workers can access county resources from any location using a single username and password. In addition to a vastly more productive workforce, the county expects to save nearly $500,000 a year in support costs.

Future plans for Hillsborough County include the creation of a public portal, which will allow county residents to go online for services such as bill payment and licensing. Novell will support these upcoming projects, allowing the county to securely deliver the right resources to both internal users and citizens.

After evaluating offerings from Microsoft, Sun and IBM, the county chose a Novell Nsure secure identity management solution. "Novell provides far and away the best identity management products on the market," said Bill Kannberg, chief technology officer of Hillsborough County. "We evaluate alternatives every year because we have a responsibility to our tax payers, but we don't find anything that comes close to the ROI of Novell's solution. An independent analysis by a leading industry analyst firm last year concluded that Hillsborough County runs a cost-effective system, with total IT spending $8.6 million lower than similar organizations. Our Novell solution contributes significantly to this savings, which also includes software costs 70 percent lower than our peer group - that's the Novell advantage."

A Market Leader in Secure Identity Management
Industry analysts are also recognizing the strength of Novell Nsure solutions. Recently, Burton Group completed an analysis of provisioning solutions that automate the process of granting or revoking user access to business resources and are a critical component of a complete secure identity management solution. The November 2002 report "Provisioning: Maturing Technologies, Converging Markets" cites BMC, IBM and Novell as the early leaders in the provisioning market.

The report states: "With eDirectory Novell has the largest installed base of any directory service. Novell's meta-directory product, DirXML, was the first to use XML as its basic data encoding format and exchange mechanism, and provides a solid foundation for Novell's new provisioning product offering, Nsure Resources.... With its recently re-focused product strategy, Novell is successfully attracting new customers for its meta-directory and security products."

According to Dave Stevenson, Novell vice president of secure identity management solutions, "Novell's acknowledged leadership in the provisioning market is yet another indicator of the power and maturity of Novell Nsure secure identity management solutions. By combining Novell's capabilities in directory and metadirectory services, provisioning, access management and professional services, we give organizations like Hillsborough County the power to extend the right resources to the right people, without compromising security."

For more information about Novell Nsure secure identity management solutions, go to www.microfocus.com/en-us/solutions/identity-access-management. Members of the media can obtain a free copy of Burton Group's provisioning report by contacting Jaculynn Peterson at jpeterson@burtongroup.com or 801-304-8119.