Microsoft on Wednesday announced new software designed to automate the process of managing user authentication on corporate networks. The company said that Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003, which will be available to customers next month, will help businesses establish, manage and eventually delete user account information more easily.
In many cases, corporate workers have dozens of individual user names and passwords for different business applications. The goal of MIIS 2003 is to gather all that information and unify the different identities, the company said. "The challenge for customers is how do they get that single view of the user across the enterprise," said Michael Stephenson, a lead product manager in Microsoft"s Windows Server unit.
The move is also part of a broader strategy for Microsoft, which wants to be at the center of authenticating users, both within companies and in Internet e-commerce transactions between companies. The company also hopes the new software will drive sales of its Windows Server 2003 operating system, which is needed to run MIIS 2003. In the corporate authentication software market, Microsoft competes against IBM, Novell, Sun Microsystems and other software makers.