Speaking at a press briefing today, Roman Tuma, regional sales director of security solutions at Oracle for Asean and North Asia, said that most of the companies in Asia are planning to adopt identity and access management (IAM) tools. "Telcos, banks, and organizations in the healthcare, education and government sectors in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, are all looking at it," Tuma said.

"It is the top priority project in most of the organizations these days," he added. This is because most IT systems such as those based on ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and HR (human resource) systems, that run the business today are automated, and as such, companies are now looking at ways to secure them.

According to Tuma, the IAM market in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, has a "sizeable growth", and research company IDC forecasted that it would grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 percent to reach US$370 million in 2010.

Singapore, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong are leading the adoption curve for IAM tools, while India, Thailand and China are in the second tier, Tuma said. Specifically, he noted that "Thailand is actually a very promising market, and China is incredibly focused on security these days".

According to Willie Low, IDC Asia-Pacific senior market analyst for infrastructure software research, the IAM software market size in Thailand and China in 2006 is expected to be about US$2.4 million and US$35 million respectively.

Low added that the Thailand IAM software market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15 percent from 2005 to 2010, while China's IAM software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22 percent in the same period.

Although Philippines and Indonesia fall into the third tier of the adoption curve, Tuma noted that telcos and banks in those countries are "pushing as much as they can to be compliant", and as such, they are turning to IAM.

Tuma explained that companies in the telco and banking industries are driving the adoption of IAM tools from two angles: compliance, or purely as a "business enabler".

For instance, IAM tools are particularly useful during mergers and acquisitions in the financial industry as they facilitate the conduct of audit trails, which can help to speed up the process of consolidation, Tuma said.

Not just yet
However, most companies in Asia need more time before implementing IAM tools on a full scale, noted Low. "In Asia, most organizations are not ready for full-scale IAM deployment yet," he said. "An IAM solution is more than an install-and-forget software product. It can be long-drawn, complex and costly, [and] any IAM implementation is likely to impact business processes as well."

"To be ready for a large IAM implementation, [areas such as] business policies, roles, access rights have to be defined very clearly, and most organizations are not ready yet," he added.