Ping Identity Announces OpenID Support for Google Apps Marketplace

Ping Identity® today announced support for OpenID Internet Single Sign-On for Google Apps^TM. Ping Identity’s new Google OpenID IdP Connector is an optional PingFederate add-on that allows software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers participating in Google Apps Marketplace™ to offer SSO access to users who authenticate via their Google Apps domain.

“The market for business-facing cloud solutions has reached a critical stage of maturity,” said Ping Identity CTO Patrick Harding. “Businesses of all sizes are rapidly moving toward cloud solutions to connect all their independent SaaS applications into one seamless user experience. As technology requirements and standards evolve, Ping Identity remains committed to providing the underlying identity security technology that ties it all together.”

An online storefront for Google Apps products and services, the Google Apps Marketplace makes it easy for more than 2 million Google Apps customers to discover, purchase and deploy integrated business applications and related professional services like those from SuccessFactors. By integrating with user account and application data stored in Google Apps, these cloud applications provide a simpler user experience, increase business efficiency, and reduce administrative overhead.

“We’re excited to see Ping Identity expand PingFederate to include OpenID,” said Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead for Google Enterprise. “SaaS providers looking to take advantage of our Marketplace want a rapid and predictable path to supporting OpenID, and Ping Federate is a great new option for them.”

Ping Identity’s Google IdP Connector gives SaaS vendors who have deployed PingFederate the ability to act as a Google OpenID relying party. This combination of Google Apps acting as a hosted authentication/OpenID Provider and SaaS vendors running PingFederate with the Google IdP Connector gives SaaS customers the ability to deploy an entirely cloud-based solution. The beta Google IdP Connector is available now to Ping Identity’s SaaS Partners with general availability planned for Q2 2010.

“The Marketplace will make it possible for Google Apps customers to purchase and instantly access SuccessFactors’ Express,” said Tom Fisher, Vice President, Cloud Computing, SuccessFactors. “In addition to offering Express through Google Apps Marketplace, we are leveraging Ping Identity Google IdP Connector to allow secure integration between Google Apps and our business execution software to deliver the seamless user experience that customers want.”

Ping Identity’s Google IdP Connector gives SaaS providers another reason to adopt PingFederate as their comprehensive Internet SSO solution. More than 100 SaaS providers rely on Ping Identity to deliver fast, reliable, standards-based SSO to their enterprise customers via PingFederate’s support for SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1, SAML 1.0 and WS-Federation. Now, the same software they have deployed and integrated into their products can be easily extended to support OpenID connectivity with the Google Apps for customers who prefer the convenience of a hosted authentication provider.

The established SSO leader in SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), Ping Identity is bringing its Internet Identity best practices to the OpenID space. The PingFederate Google OpenID Connector follows last year’s release of OpenID for Google Apps via PingConnect, Ping Identity’s on-demand SaaS SSO product. Ping Identity Senior Technical Architect Pam Dingle serves on the board of directors of the OpenID Foundation and Ping Identity has plans to provide native OpenID relying party support for PingFederate in the second half of 2010.

About Ping Identity Corporation

Ping Identity is the market leader in Internet Identity Security, delivering on-premise software and on-demand services for Internet Single Sign-On (SSO), Identity-Enabled Web Services and Internet User Account Management. More than 400 enterprises, government agencies, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors and online service providers worldwide rely on Ping Identity to streamline application access, reduce administrative costs, generate additional revenue and improve security. Visit www.pingidentity.com for additional information.

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