Oracle Buys Another ID Company

Oracle has quietly purchased yet another identity and access management company, Bridgestream, according to a report by The 451 Group and postings on several venture capital blogs.

Oracle will announce the deal early next month, according to The 451 Group, which estimates the transaction at about $35 million.

Bridgestream marks the fifth identity and access management firm purchased by Oracle. The software giant last month acquired Bharosa, maker of strong authentication and anti-fraud software. In 2005, Oracle bought Thor Technologies (user provisioning and passwords), OctetString (virtual directories), and Oblix (single sign-on password manager and provisioning).

Bridgestream, which had been an Oracle partner, sells SmartRoles, a suite of software products that map business relationships within an organization, providing authorization to specific systems and applications based on users' roles. Industry experts say automated user-role management must be part and parcel of identity management products, so it makes sense for Oracle to buy the technology for potential integration with its Identity Management platform.

Neither Oracle nor Bridgestream had responded to press inquiries at this posting.

Bridgestream also has technology partnerships with IBM Tivoli, Sun, and BEA Systems.

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