Coming on the heels of earning among the highest overall scores in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for Identity and Access Management-as-a-Service (IDaaS), IBM Cloud Identity Service is ranked at the top of the worldwide IDaaS market leader board by analyst firm Ovum in its 2017 IDaaS Decision Matrix report.

Many factors contributed to Cloud Identity Service’s position as an IDaaS market leader in the Ovum report, including the service’s breadth of capabilities, depth of capabilities, market execution, global reach and broad industry penetration. Below are details and quotes from the Ovum Decision Matrix for IDaaS report regarding these deciding factors.

Download the 2017 Ovum IDaaS Decision Matrix on Selecting an IDaaS Solution

The IDaaS Solution’s Breadth of Capabilities

According to Ovum analysts Andrew Kellett and Rik Turner, Cloud Identity Service is an IDaaS market leader because it supports “a complete range of identity management, web access management and federated identity management services.”

Breadth of capabilities is important to Cloud Identity Service’s clients, who simplify and accelerate their efforts by leveraging one single software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for all their identity and access management (IAM) needs, rather than integrating multiple on-premises and cloud IAM products.

The IDaaS Solution’s Depth of Capabilities

It was not only the breadth of capabilities that earned Cloud Identity Service the position of an IDaaS market leader in Ovum’s IDaaS report, but also the depth of those capabilities. Ovum’s lead analysts explained that Cloud Identity Service “includes the same depth of identity management, web access control and federation that are found in the on-premise platform version of its IAM technology.”

Because of the depth of IAM capabilities, Ovum said Cloud Identity Service “was a consistently strong performer across most of the listed IDaaS technology components and appeared on the leaderboard for service delivery, SSO, federation, provisioning, directory services, reporting/alerting/monitoring and management infrastructure.”

The Market Execution of the IDaaS Solution

Another market-leading factor called out in Ovum’s Decision Matrix for IDaaS report is Cloud Identity Service’s market execution. Kellet and Turner specifically pointed to Cloud Identity Service’s “interoperability and innovation, scalability and enterprise fit.” Ovum explained that being excellent in these dimensions of market execution are essential because clients need to know the IDaaS solution’s “forward-looking features” can be easily “integrated within an organization’s operational systems and services.”

Cloud Identity Service’s high marks in scalability indicate its achievement in “the scalability of the solution across small, medium and large environments,” while having good enterprise fit is telling of the service’s strength in aligning “business requirements and potential cost overheads.”

Geographic Penetration of the IDaaS Solution

IBM Cloud Identity Service shines as the top IDaaS around global reach. Whereas most IDaaS products struggle to prove broad geographic penetration, Ovum reported: “Only IBM [Cloud Identity Service] was able to confirm an established and even split of sales across the four key regional markets of North America, South America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Others appeared to have a strong U.S. marketing bias and some had very little presence in other areas.”

This is a relevant measure of Cloud Identity Service’s success as an IDaaS market leader, and is especially critical for both growing companies and multinationals who need a cloud-delivered IAM solution capable of scaling globally without integrating third-party vendors.

The IDaaS Solution’s Industry Penetration Across Clients of All Sizes

Cloud Identity Service was recognized within the Ovum Decision Matrix for IDaaS report as having “a good split of clients across small, medium and large enterprise markets across key industry verticals.” Because Cloud Identity Service was designed to scale, it is both affordable for growing organizations and robust enough to handle B2E, B2B and B2C user groups for the largest of multinationals. Moreover, clients of Cloud Identity Service span every major vertical, including manufacturing, internet publishing, distribution, energy, retail, financial services, insurance, professional services and more.

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Download the 2017 Ovum IDaaS Decision Matrix on Selecting an IDaaS Solution