Introduction

WSO2 has historically offered a variety of open source tools, initially focused on web services and later spanning application integration and middleware, API management, analytics, IoT, and IAM. At the time of our last report on the company, WSO2 had introduced a new programming language, Ballerina, intended to provide easier application integration in the ‘hyper-distributed’ world (which now includes containers, serverless functions and microservices), as well as an alternative to low-code/no-code app development offerings. Since then, WSO2 has more fully embraced the low-code/no-code movement in an effort to more effectively target the app developer community and DevOps initiatives, and added a cloud-native architecture.

On the IAM side of the house, WSO2’s most recent effort is Asgardeo, a cloud-based identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) offering intended to compete with similar products from the likes of Okta (Auth0), ForgeRock and Ping Identity – particularly around customer IAM (CIAM) initiatives – and further bolster WSO2’s attempts to tap into the developer community. The goal is to make it straightforward for developers to embed CIAM into new apps with minimal security training – what it calls ‘security as code.

THE TAKE

As we noted in a recent report on Akeyless, component technologies like containers, microservices and serverless functions are becoming staples of the modern compute fabric, and as such, developers must ‘shift left’ and address security earlier in the development process. With its new focus on lowcode/no-code application development processes, WSO2 sees IAM as a component of a broader app development and management platform approach, and is looking to apply the shift-left notion beyond secrets management and privileged access management (PAM) to the IAM market more broadly, especially within CIAM opportunities. The market opportunity is ripe, although WSO2 is a bit late to the party. Its challenge will be to carve out some opportunities in a market niche that will be hotly contested by larger vendors that have greater market awareness and provide extensive workforce identity offerings in IGA and PAM, in addition to CIAM – although CIAM may present a greater growth opportunity in the near term. WSO2 could also look to tap into the adjacent identity verification market.

Context

WSO2 was founded in 2005 by IBM veterans Paul Fremantle and Sanjiva Weerawarana as an open source alternative middleware platform. Weerawarana is a noted expert in open source software architectures and is an elected member of the Apache Software Foundation. The WSO2 corporate moniker is loosely related to the notion of adding ‘oxygen to Web services,’ and a nod to the company’s original focus on open source Web services. Today, WSO2 has offices in Santa Clara, California (HQ); New York; London; Colombo, Sri Lanka; São Paulo; Berlin; Dubai; and Sydney. When we first wrote about WSO2 in 2014, the company had over 300 employees, with current headcount now over 900 global staff. The company has taken in over $130m in investment funding from Cisco, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and Toba Capital, the most recent a $90m series E round led by Goldman Sachs in late 2021. Prior investor Tyler Jewell from Toba Capital served as CEO from 2017 to 2019. Toba Capital founder and former Quest Software chairman and CEO Vinny Smith sits on WSO2’s board.

To read full download the whitepaper:

Market Insight Report Reprint – WSO2 ‘shifts left’ with Asgardeo cloud-native customer IAM offering for developers

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