VMware and Okta partner to bolster their mobile security offerings, such as improving secure log-ins, in a bid to challenge Microsoft
Nico Grant / Bloomberg :
Context & Ripple Effects
VMware and Microsoft have been frenemies for years: they cooperated on Project A2 to ease Windows 10 rollouts via desktop virtualization in 2015, and Microsoft later deepened the entanglement by letting Azure customers run VMware's virtualization software through its Dell partnership. Now VMware is flipping from coexistence to competition, teaming with Okta on secure log-ins and mobile security.
Okta arrives with momentum of its own — it extended two-factor authentication to all single sign-on customers last year — while Google's marketplace tie-up with MobileIron shows cloud rivals are already recruiting phone-security specialists to round out their stacks against Microsoft.
First-order effects
- Joint customers get Okta's identity and multi-factor sign-in wired into VMware's device-management layer, giving enterprises an alternative to Microsoft's own identity-plus-mobile-security bundle.
- Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility pitch now faces a named two-front competitor instead of separate point products.
Second-order effects
- Other standalone mobile-security vendors like MobileIron become more valuable as partners or targets, since every cloud giant assembling a full stack needs an identity and device-management piece.
- Bundled pricing pressure lands on Microsoft's mobility offerings, which must justify themselves against a best-of-breed pairing.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, enterprise security consolidates around alliances between identity providers and device-management platforms, eroding the assumption that one vendor — chiefly Microsoft — supplies the whole login-to-device chain.
The trend: Enterprise mobile security is reorganizing into identity-plus-device-management alliances built specifically to counter Microsoft's integrated stack.