Business Ready Security
Today the Identity and Security Division at Microsoft introduced what we call our Business Ready Security strategy. This is a fundamentally new approach to enterprise security, centered on the recognition that security solutions should help companies achieve their business goals while managing risk and empowering their people. Business Ready Security is both a destination for customers and our long term strategy to help them get there. It is based on a much broader definition of security than the status quo, which includes protection, access, management and user identity.
Below is more information, as well as several related news announcements. But, to get an immediate sense for Business Ready Security in the here and now, we suggest watching this video about a customer called Exostar. You can also read more about Business Ready Security in a Q&A with general manager Doug Leland.
There are three main tenets to Business Ready Security:
One, we are providing protection that spans the breadth of a company’s systems and data while allowing access for employees, based on their identity, from virtually anywhere. For example, today we are introducing Forefront Online Security for Exchange, the first of our Forefront Online services. Note that we have expanded the Forefront brand to cover our portfolio of identity and security solutions. Our Identity Lifecycle Manager product is now officially named Forefront Identity Manager.
Two, we aim to make security experiences and compliance management much simpler and cost-effective for both IT and businesspeople. In support of this, today we released beta 2 of Forefront “Stirling” our integrated security suite.
Three, we want to help customers integrate and extend security across the entirety of their enterprises. That means continuing to build security into Windows and our IT software solutions. It also means interoperating with non-Windows environments through partnerships and open standards Case in point: Today we are also announcing a broad group of companies supporting and extending the capabilities of Forefront “Stirling,” including Brocade, Guardium, Imperva, Juniper Networks, Kaspersky, Q1 Labs, StillSecure, Sourcefire, Inc. Tipping Point and RSA.
A number of analysts are weighing in on the topic of enterprise security, too. You can view videos and download a white paper from the Enterprise Strategy Group here.
We’ll be discussing this strategy more at next week’s RSA conference and beyond. Stay tuned for more info.
