Convergence and security concerns will drive enterprise directory services adoption (2002+), reinforcing the need for identity management (2002-04). NOS upgrades, strong authentication, and higher demands for identity management will drive increasingly complex integration of multi-vendor/platform directory instances (2003+), resulting in more . . .
Convergence and security concerns will drive enterprise directory services adoption (2002+), reinforcing the need for identity management (2002-04). NOS upgrades, strong authentication, and higher demands for identity management will drive increasingly complex integration of multi-vendor/platform directory instances (2003+), resulting in more use of EAI-like integration "toolkits."

Full leverage of secure enterprise infrastructure integration will lag until 2004+, due to application platform and network complexities as well as standards adoption rates (for example, security APIs). Identity authentication will remain the primary use of directories through 2006. Greater directory integration and management demands will drive eventual convergence with database platforms and services (2006+).

Web services are not a new idea, but interest and initial use of such services are rising sharply. The idea of having a loosely coupled, language-neutral, platform-independent way of linking applications within organizations, across enterprises, and across the Internet is compelling.

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