Microsoft's identity and access management solution designed for corporate environments has evolved to a new phase. TechEd 2008 was the stage where Microsoft unveiled the successor of Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 FP1, namely Identity Lifecycle Manager 2 Beta 3. The latest development milestone is also the first public beta of the product, which the Redmond company estimates that will be available early next year. Douglas Leland, general manager of Microsoft's Identity & Access Business Group, revealed that the solution "is going to have a huge impact on the identity management marketplace".

The reason for this is simple, according to Leland, "it's the first integrated identity management system that gives identity management tools to audiences beyond the IT department, including powerful self-service capabilities through Microsoft Office for end users and familiar .NET- and WS*-based tools for developers".

In the keynote address at TechEd, Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President, Server and Tools Business talked about how Microsoft was addressing increasingly challenging issues from enterprises to manage user identities across multiple service providers. Leland stated that Microsoft found it important to make identity and access management available to end users as a consequence of the feedback it had been receiving.

"So what we've done with ILM '2' is provide the end users with powerful self-service tools they need to manage their own identities and access privileges. And we're doing it through Office's user interface, which end users are familiar and comfortable with, so there's barely a learning curve. The result is identity management that is more balanced and effective while at the same time accurate and cost effective," Leland explained.

ILM 2 is advertised as the first solution of its kind which bundles together identity management with credential control and access privileges. At this point in time, Microsoft expects Identity Lifecycle Manager 2 to be released to manufacturing in the first quarter of 2009.