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It was two weeks ago today that I set sail for Gartner's Identity and Access Management summit in L.A. For the two days I was there, I was able to meet with many exciting and excited people, all who kept echoing that it really felt like something big was going on with IAM this year.

In my two days of meetings, I asked everyone two questions. The first question was: what do you think will be the biggest challenge for IAM in the coming year? The answers follow:

Venkat Raghavan, Director, IBM Tivoli Security Market Management:

The biggest challenge will be the evolution of IAM from discrete point products to IAM delivered within a service oriented architecture as a set of "reusable services" that can be easily integrated into applications and business processes, middleware and data interactions.

Jackson Shaw, the Sr. Product Manager of Quest:

I believe the biggest challenge for IAM in the coming year will be twofold: How companies can obtain a bigger and faster ROI on their identity management initiatives; and, what we can do to further protect the consumer from identity theft and enhance their trust of Internet-based e-commerce.

Patrick Parker, CEO of The Dot Net Factory:

Human and organizational issues will pose the biggest challenge to the industry in 2008 as businesses realize that teams working on SOA and IAM initiatives need to be fused under a common vision.

Omar Hussain, President and CEO of Imprivata:

Making products easier and simpler to install and maintain. The market opportunity and demand for IAM solutions is no longer just with the Fortune 1000 companies but with the broader market that can't always afford to pay 4x to 6x the license cost to get IAM products up and running. Until IAM solutions can become more productized they will
remain solutions that only the few can afford.

Howard Ting of Securent:

The biggest challenge will be sorting through the myriad of emerging IAM technologies and determining priorities for investment.

David Fusari, Vice President, CTO of Sentillion:

I think the biggest challenge for IAM will be for organizations to treat IAM as a strategic initiative instead of just solving a tactical issue.

Mark Ford, CISSP, Principal, Leader, National Identity & Access Management of Deloitte & Touche LLP:

I believe that one of the biggest challenges for the IAM community will be to effectively fit into the broader market leading issues around Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC).

Martin Ryan, Vice President Worldwide Sales and Marketing of e-DMZ:

The biggest challenge for IAM in the coming year will be delivering, meeting and maintaining compliance requirements. Compliance seems to be a continually moving target with areas of audit focus changing each year.

Mark L. Feldman, Ph.D., Alert Enterprise:

There is no bigger or more important challenge in the coming year than tackling the convergence of access to logical systems and physical access systems, while integrating ERP data for comprehensive security intelligence.

Brandon Whichard, Product Line Manager, Identity Management, Sun Microsystems

The biggest IAM challenge companies will face in the coming year centers around how to cost-effectively manage auditing and compliance; in the context of SOX and other regulations, companies have no choice but to implement the appropriate controls and policies that ensure regulatory compliance and can stand the test of an audit.

Well, that's it for today, check back tomorrow to see what all these luminaries think will be the main trend for IAM in the coming year. Also, tomorrow I will show absolutely conclusive proof that IAM is the hottest thing going in the security sector.

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