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Okta teams with SailPoint for joint identity management service

Okta and SailPoint are often pitted as rivals, but the companies offer different solutions to the online identity management problem.
Written by Natalie Gagliordi, Contributor
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SaaS identity providers Okta and SailPoint Technologies have inked a strategic partnership that aims to tackle access and identity governance problems for enterprises.

Okta and SailPoint are often pitted as rivals, but the companies offer different solutions to the online identity management problem. Okta functions as a badge reader, managing employee access to business applications and data. SailPoint's platform works on the governance side, determining whether the person with the badge should gain access based on assigned privileges and corporate security policies.

"In the enterprise, businesses may also need additional governance over who can access an application or data and under what circumstance," said Todd McKinnon, Okta co-founder and CEO. "This isn't something Okta has traditionally done, but is the core of what SailPoint does."

Okta and SailPoint together, McKinnon said, offer organizations end-to-end identity management, from access all the way to identity governance and compliance.

In more technical terms, the joint Okta and SailPoint product will provide services for initial on-boarding, secure single sign-on and multi-factor authentication for secure application access, and automated off-boarding as users change roles or leave an organization. It also offers key identity functions such as access certification of any application and self-service support for password resets, and automates all access requests.

"Together, SailPoint and Okta bring ease of access, security and control to our collective customers, and we are doing so in a platform-agnostic way," said SailPoint CEO Mark McClain. "We know most enterprises operate in a largely heterogeneous environment and as such, they need to secure access to all their applications and data, no matter the platform, on-premises or in the cloud."

Both Okta and SailPoint went public in 2017 and are among the key players in the identity management services space, an estimated $18 billion addressable market, according to Investors Business Daily. SailPoint's IPO in November gave the company a market cap of $1.2 billion, while Okta's IPO in April valued the company at $1.5 billion.

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