Microsoft buys ID management firm Alacris

Microsoft has acquired Alacris, a vendor of certificate management and identity assurance software products, the companies announced Monday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Each of Alacris’ 24 employees will be evaluated to see how they fit into Microsoft’s organization, said Michael Atalla, group product manager for Windows security at Microsoft.

The acquisition adds to Microsoft’s strategy of providing “easily administered” identity and access management solutions, the company said. Alacris’ flagship product idNexus Identity Assurance Management System is aimed at helping companies using security technologies such as smart cards and public key infrastructure to deploy them in a user-friendly way, Atalla said.

Alacris’ technology provides digital certificate and smart card life-cycle management products that help customers deploy, manage and maintain security systems using Windows-based smart cards. Alacris’ idNexus technology is designed to help IT departments streamline the provisioning of new smart cards and the configuration of existing smart cards. The technology also provides a Web-based policy-driven workflow management system that helps users manage their smart cards.

Many companies are moving away from using user names and passwords alone to give employees access to sensitive data or equipment, Atalla said. By adding Alacris, Microsoft wants to show companies that “the use of smart cards and biometrics are as useful and easy to use as user name and passwords,” Atalla said.

Microsoft will continue to work with smart card vendors and its other security partners, and the Alacris acquisition will add products on top of Microsoft’s existing partnerships, Atalla said. While Alacris has focused much of its efforts on smart cards, Microsoft plans to use the technology elsewhere as well. “We put ourselves in a position to offer an end-to-end solution,” Atalla said. “In the end, any digital certificate solution is on the table.”