Latest / Identity at the Center / #159 - The Evolution of IAM Pricing Models with Binod Singh

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#159 - The Evolution of IAM Pricing Models with Binod Singh · Identity at the Center

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You're listening to the identity of the center podcast, this is
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the show that talks about identity and access management
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and making sure you know who has access to what let's get
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started. Welcome to the identity of the
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sender podcast I'm Jeff and that's Jim.
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Hey Jim hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh, not so bad yourself.
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I'm doing great. I as you know, am in the process
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of buying a house but I think the biggest news in our industry
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is that there's a private Equity Firm Thoma, Bravo, that is
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making it, much bigger purchase, taking Ping, Identity, private
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and a 2.8 billion dollar acquisition deal.
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And once you get your hot take on, that definitely would be a
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hot take. Well, let's see.
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They bought sale point. I believe, I think they have,
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was it Beyond trust. I mean, don't quote me on that.
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But I think there are kind of gathering a whole Suite of
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security tools, which I'm not sure what that's going to end up
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like if they'll just keep separate or try to do some sort
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of merge play. I don't know.
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I mean, I think it's interesting I think is totally in line with
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the rest of the industry, seems to be having these periods of
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consolidation. Ation in the market.
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But yeah, I don't know if I have.
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I'm not definitely an expert enough to be able to weigh in on
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what it means. I'm sure it's exciting for
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paying data to get a bunch of money in.
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Well I think that you know I'm I hot take is that they must have
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seen the value like underlying value either, you know.
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Combining the companies that they have or even just the fact
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that, hey, here's this company that went public is stock price.
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Has been beat up a little bit because of the decline in the in
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the market and I mean, they're probably smart.
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They see that identity is at the center of information security,
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that's the biggest area that companies are going to continue
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to invest in and if they can go ahead and and get a good deal on
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a company like this that it makes sense to go buy it.
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And heck, I mean, I think they're probably more in the
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business of buying a Company making some changes and then
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taking them back public, you know, a couple of years, down
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the road after the market, kind of would be more in line to
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recognize the value. So that's kind of my guess.
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But I think it's it's earth-shaking news, right?
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I mean, this is pink is one of the biggest players in our space
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and I mean that what is to come of it is yet to be seen but
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that's my heart take well. Let's let's, let's be clear
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here, right there. Not an altruistic Endeavor.
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The other make money. It's basically they see an
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opportunity to make money, which probably makes sense.
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You know, Buy Low, sell high right all that good stuff.
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So I think every, you know, I think most of the market has
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been down for the last couple of months and it's probably
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probably no better time to buy whatever ends up being but yeah,
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let's this is all about money. It's yeah, I'm almost a Time
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Acquisitions. Are I mean you look at the
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Twitter acquisition, you wonder if it's about making money or
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something else but But I don't think this is in the same
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category. Yeah, I don't think so.
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I think it's a totally different type of purchase.
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I hope at least. Let's see.
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I know we're going to get to our guest here in a moment, but I do
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want to remind folks that will be at Gartner.
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I am Summit in Las Vegas. And was that August 22nd to the
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24th will be doing some recording there.
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We've got a nice sweet courtesy of our friends at Aris M.
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If you want to come watch a show, get recorded.
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See the magic as it happens, you know, reach out to Jim and
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myself. Or myself on LinkedIn and would
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be happy to try and figure out how we can accommodate that.
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But should be fun lookin forward to gettin it back into like the
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conference sort of swing of things fist bumps.
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You know. All the inevitable invites to
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like the 40 different dinners that all take place on the same
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night. Right?
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All that good stuff. So just a reminder will be out
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there and hopefully get a chance to meet folks who are you know
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listen out there and that would be kind of cool for us.
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Yeah I mean I honestly cannot wait.
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I'm really excited about it and The funny thing is so the
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conference is, you know, going throughout the week.
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I'm going to fly back and be moving that weekend and, you
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know, to the days into the spillover in the week after.
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So you can be my my moment to get a little bit of R&R.
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Well, I guess we're be working our butts off a fake, but, you
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know, being in Vegas, is kind of a cool experience.
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Usually, it is, it can be tiring.
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We've got a ton of guests that you've lined up.
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I think you'd like jam packed my editing.
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Joel for the next week after it. So I'll have to figure out how
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to get it done. But yeah, I'll be pretty cool.
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All right, why don't we? I think for our listeners to is
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just to be aware that, you know, the week after Vegas we're going
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to have a ton of extra episode. So be on the lookout for that
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and I think our next episode. So next week we'll dedicate to
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kind of a preview so that point we should be able to preview
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some of that content. Yeah.
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Maybe I'll even read up and see what the sessions.
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Are all about since I've even done that yet.
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All right, let's get to today's topic.
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I think this is something that will that a lot of folks will
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find interesting and that really is what I'm tentatively titling
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and who knows, if they'll make of the make the actual final
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show title but the evolution of I am pricing models.
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I think it's something that folks are probably familiar with
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if they've been you Enterprise or you know customers base of
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buying products is the old. Hey let's do a Perpetual license
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or now, it's subscription and now there's some new options out
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there. To help us with this
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conversation and we've invited our friend.
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But noticing, he's the founder and president at ailanthus
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Technologies, back to the show, welcome back then.
6:03
Oh thank you. We really appreciate you guys
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calling me back. I remember, I think it was me
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back in Feb, 20 2000, right? And I was with you guys and that
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was a very interesting topic to and looking forward to a very
6:17
exciting discussion. Yeah, that was definitely an
6:19
interesting time in the human race, I guess.
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As a shared Collective Consciousness.
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Yeah, that was episode number 32 and here we are on.
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What should be episode 159, which is kind of crazy to say.
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I know that we've kind of learned a bit about your
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background last time. So if folks are kind of want to
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get back to, you know, how do you know, how did you get into
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the item space? I would encourage you to go
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back, listen to episode 32, and then come back and pick this up.
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But what's been going on the last couple of years since
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really, I guess the last time we talked about is like the
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pandemic was just getting started.
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What's new and shaken in the world of the node where the bit
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just been a very interesting more than two years since we met
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last as you know the pandemic has been the main topic for all
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of us and in particular, I think for identity and access
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management folks, this has been a very interesting time while
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the world was was looking at things going down.
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Things were in a difficult State business, as well as health.
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One thing that was certainly picking up in the background was
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identity and access management because people working from home
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and many other issues that came up Suddenly three opened the
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doors for. I am in a bigger way that it
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ever was not that a lot of buying happened at that point in
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time but some of us being in this space for a long time were
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quite really looking at as to how things are spanning out, how
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technology requirements are changing in.
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Donate and we were all busy trying to fix things and do
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things. Like for example working from
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robot remote became a very, very important thing.
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And we will try to look at as to how like most of the other guys
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can can do changes to our products.
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So we were looking at a lot of things.
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The thing that happened with pandemic we could see that
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there's going to be a downturn and even though the need for
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concerns around identity and access are going to increase but
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people Are going to be having less dollars to really be.
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So on one side, the demand will go up but the affordability of
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customers going to be less than what it was before pandemic.
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So we were looking at, you know, interestingly enough.
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We began doing a very major survey in the last one year,
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more than a year. Now, where we did go too close
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to our 250 cios and CFOs asking these questions in terms of
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what, what do you think? What kind And of modeling, are
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you looking for one about the demand for identity and access
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and second as to what would be the way you'd like to purchase.
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So we were quite busy trying to do all that in the last more
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than two years sounds like a full plate.
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I guess I you know, Jim asked me for my heart, take on the pink
9:11
thing. When you see, you know of a
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large PE firm like Thoma Bravo, make purchases like this.
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What does that feel like, you know I guess being in this space
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you know, from as a Entity product is it?
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I assume it. Is there some sort of
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validation, right? Hey, we're in the right space,
9:28
probably helps. I guess any, any thoughts or
9:31
things that maybe people who are not, you know, with what's a
9:35
technology itself and you see this, but what should we be
9:37
taking away from that sort of thing?
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So this is not surprising. As you, as you, you guys were
9:43
chatting in the beginning, this is a good time to buy in some
9:47
senses and this is a good time to buy those companies who do
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have a good and Ounce customer base because they have be there
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for white and it's very difficult to change technology
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in areas like these as we do. Even if you are not fully
10:00
satisfied but companies we are we are not we're not really
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making much Headway you know, and facing lot of headwind
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because of the kind of Technology they have, something
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has been an old company. In fact, it's been one of the
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first companies. If you look at these is our
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space. And in that they have, So many
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technologies that they had to build.
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See one of the problems with most of most of the guys is that
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when you begin, you obviously have the best and the latest in
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technology. And as you begin acquiring
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customers and couple of years past due to typically, I see
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that a three to three and a half years.
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You know. Technology is starts getting old
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and it's very difficult to make a major change in your version,
10:46
so you keep on patching up and then you end up seeing new
10:50
features and areas opening up like, DC I am and so on and so
10:55
forth and then you start bringing additional Technologies
10:58
either to acquisition or doing some additional you know ways.
11:03
I'm going to do some additional engineering to develop new
11:07
modules and what you end up doing is having a bunch of
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Technologies which do not really work out you know as one single
11:16
composite technology which is worked more and more happening
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at least in identity and access Jeff, you know, about the
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converged I am and it was only in November, 20, 20 that
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Gardener talked about it first and ever since then, that seems
11:32
to have become the real Demand with customers because and most
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of the Technologies don't satisfy.
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So I'm not surprised to see ping by out because it's a good
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candidate it it has been there for a long time.
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I think customer the number of customers that it has is the
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biggest biggest attraction. In terms of its value, not so
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much of Technology submit. I wanted to kind of shift this
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into our conversation for today which is around licensing models
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for. I am software and I'll start by
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saying that over the past decade, we've kind of seen a
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shift away from the Perpetual license model like I buy license
12:15
per user and then I own that license for life and pay
12:18
maintenance fee to something that's more subscription-based.
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So I pay an annual, only the annual fee, and it's not just
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cloud-based applications that are making the shift.
12:30
But even, you know, traditional on-premise software
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applications. I have been making this shift in
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Mass to the subscription model and now you, you had I llantas,
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your company has added a wrinkle to this which is basically a new
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Option called pay-per-use pricing.
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And so first, I wanted to start with what's kind of the
12:51
inspiration for Were the paper use model.
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So the as I told you the whole thought process began, just
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around the pandemic time when we could see that this is going to
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expand out into the ability and it is going to hit the ability
13:07
of the customers to purchase. I am technology and there's got
13:12
to be something that needs to be done.
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And that's when we did this very important survey, we took about
13:16
six months for us to do that and we've we were asking the CFOs
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and the cio's As to what is it, what's the kind of what are the
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kind of gaps that you see today in in your purchase model and
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what came out to us, were three things.
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First was in terms of the high entry costs.
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Let's not forget that identity and access the the real
13:42
opportunity today and more than 60% of the opportunity is in
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Greenfield space. Customers who have not purchased
13:50
I am before, but they Not postpone any more because of the
13:55
security concerns that they have, in fact, more and more.
13:58
It's being said, that smaller organizations have got more
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danger and they're in, they're more vulnerable than larger
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organizations for obvious reasons.
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And therefore, everybody wants to go and have the core
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technology, like I am so, but the entry costs are very high.
14:16
You look at it. Jim typically today about 2,000
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users, which is pretty much the same.
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Side of a mid-market customer. I end up the mid-market.
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You end up spending about 200k and two hundred thousand dollars
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is not a small amount for a midsize customers to spend on
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it. Regular basis on an annual
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basis, add to it the the difficulties of implementation
14:41
and high costs associated with it and all it makes it
14:45
prohibitive. So high entry cost is one thing,
14:47
one problem that we wanted to really solve.
14:50
Yeah. So it seems like it's like from
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a Four sharks or standpoint. This is a model that we're
14:57
becoming accustomed to. I'm wondering do you see a shift
15:02
in this area taking place for application applications overall
15:07
not just? I am applications like I've lent
15:10
as but also you know travel and expense or Erp systems that they
15:16
shift more away from a, we're going to charge you per user,
15:21
which might not be the best indicator of how much value
15:25
you're getting from. This system has shifted more
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towards something like the amount of times you use a
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workflow or the, you know, kind of the the more of a usage,
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based model. Absolutely.
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So this is not just true for I am space but also for as use
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rightly said, the demand for shifting onto a model, where we
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will have lower entry cost where we have lower wastage because
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that's another issue that in the especially in this Scription
15:53
model is, is really very, very, very Stark.
15:58
In fact talking to many, many, cios.
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They say, you know, subscription is kind of illusionary, because
16:03
when you begin, it looks like one more subscriber you were
16:07
adding to your system, and it looks like a very small cost per
16:11
subscriber, but then it ends up into being something humongous
16:15
at the end of the year and we don't even realize it.
16:18
So it's very important to really see how do we cut the wastage.
16:22
Age. And that's another thing which
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is quite true for other Technologies as well.
16:29
In the third is the accountability.
16:30
Let's not forget that because in the subscription or any of the
16:34
previous models, there is no accountability on on the cost
16:37
who's consuming, who's not consuming what's really going
16:40
on? In over there people can only
16:43
look at the the amount that they have invested but the usage in
16:49
the accountability for usage is not there and these things get
16:52
pretty We seen other Industries as well autonomy.
16:55
And I am. Yeah, right.
16:57
As wonder if maybe you could give a little when we did our
17:00
prep call, you kind of gave some perspective in terms of the
17:05
history of the shift from the Perpetual model into the
17:08
subscription model. And what I thought was
17:10
interesting is that some companies did a good job with it
17:14
like Microsoft, others maybe not so well, right.
17:18
So what can we glean from this and kind of apply to What might
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take place with the paper use model.
17:26
So we got to, first of all know, couple of things, the market
17:29
practices for purchases or sales for that matter, from organic,
17:34
from companies like us, are largely driven by large players
17:38
and their needs, they're not so much driven by the needs of the
17:42
customer. If I look at the Perpetual model
17:46
and when the shift was occurring about a decade ago from
17:49
Perpetual to license, I clearly you You would remember that
17:54
people like IBM and the Oracles of the word but the last ones to
17:57
go into that and the reason is very simple.
18:00
They had huge AMC that they used to get, you know, it used to run
18:05
into hundreds of millions of dollars that they were
18:08
collecting, which would disappear overnight.
18:10
If the shift to the the this model the typically, it's the
18:16
ratio thumb rule is about three-and-a-half to four times.
18:19
So between the perpetual and the end And and the subscription
18:24
model and suddenly, if these large players who were selling
18:28
on Perpetual, if they shifted to the other model, which is
18:33
subscription, their revenue would have dropped down by
18:37
almost half and they cannot afford it.
18:39
I mean, what base are you going to show to the stock market,
18:42
right? And nobody's going to understand
18:44
that. So they tried not to do not to
18:48
do that shift till such time it became impossible not to shift
18:51
with the customers began. Demanding and everybody started
18:54
doing it amongst the smaller players like us.
18:57
So we must understand that. But the practices are, you know,
19:00
the big guys, they don't don't, you know, wait, they don't go
19:04
necessarily to satisfy the requirements of the customer be
19:07
go by. They have to protect their,
19:09
their own share prices. And that's what really drives
19:14
the thing till the last moment. So that happened once.
19:18
The same thing is beginning to weaken.
19:20
See it happening again when People are beginning to get
19:24
quite dissatisfied with the subscription model.
19:28
Something that was happening with Perpetual just about 10
19:30
years ago. So it's time to change and you
19:34
know, reasons are quite quite clear.
19:36
I can't recast lack of accountability on the investment
19:41
and the sheer waste is that you have in the subscription because
19:45
you have to sign up a subscription and perhaps for
19:47
more number of people than you have because you're doing it
19:50
usually for a year and You're not going to use it is and then
19:55
you've got the light user versus the heavy user.
19:57
You've got the you've got view, purchasing your not everybody is
20:03
not using the same when you purchase, you don't begin,
20:07
everybody doesn't start using it because you still implementing
20:09
it. I am it's Rachel because it
20:11
takes time to implement. So, for first couple of years,
20:15
you're not even utilizing the full value at all.
20:17
So once again, those pressures are there, and I think this,
20:21
that's what is going to lead to another.
20:22
They're around a big change. We are you taking the leadership
20:27
in that as well? As far as I am, is concerned.
20:30
I'm a fan of choice and I think this introduces choice for the
20:33
consumer, right? I think there is probably, you
20:38
know, where options where a subscription definitely makes
20:41
sense or even Perpetual makes sense.
20:43
And there's certainly an option where pay-per-use makes sense as
20:46
well. And I think this is why things
20:48
that you touched on when we're you just said, is that From a
20:53
subscription model to any other payment model has repercussions,
20:58
especially for public companies, where they are chasing, sort of
21:01
the next quarter, or Revenue targets or whatever it may be.
21:05
So that I think that it is interesting.
21:07
I also think about it from Death by subscription as well.
21:11
I think most people will probably have like multiple
21:13
video subscriptions, right? It's Netflix Hulu Disney.
21:19
Now, I might as well commit, you know, all your You Tube TVs.
21:22
He's right. All the different things you pay
21:24
for, how much of it are you actually using?
21:26
And I think about it in the old days as an old person on it is
21:32
remember, we used to have minutes on our phones and number
21:35
of text messages that we would have a sort of a bank and it
21:38
feels like a better version of that because we've gotten
21:42
accustomed to this usage model of paper, you know, pay for it.
21:46
You use. I think Amazon started this with
21:50
their, aw Essence is, for example, it was From the start
21:54
built on a paper use or consumption model.
21:57
I think it's easier when you have those sort of options that
21:59
are out there. So I think it's, I think it's
22:00
definitely pretty cool to kind of think about that choice, but
22:05
I imagine and you might have reference this.
22:07
When we were just starting to show is the technology needs to
22:11
be there to be able to do that accountability, that
22:15
record-keeping and tracking to be able to keep an accurate
22:18
count of okay, who is actually using our product.
22:21
I would imagine that there. Probably some technical
22:23
underpinning that needs to take place to support this and I
22:26
think things like microservices or apis or whatever it may be
22:30
and if your application is not built on sort of that that sort
22:34
of model, it may be difficult to move quickly to a consumption
22:39
based model. Do I have that?
22:41
Right are the things that I need to kind of consider or people
22:44
listening should consider. You're absolutely right.
22:46
There are, there are major technology changes that are
22:48
required to fit yourself into. It's not like shit.
22:52
From Perpetual to do the subscription there in effect,
22:57
there was not much of a change in technology really was
23:01
required. Your subscription got more
23:03
shows. He hated with Cloud a typically
23:05
doesn't Nothing Stops you from having subscription on on-prem
23:09
as well, right? So there will no real changes
23:13
required in technology at that point in that transition.
23:16
But this transition does require quite a bit of Technology
23:19
change. You talked about the micro Isis
23:22
architecture. Yes, that does help in terms of
23:26
Shifting to a consumption based model but I'm just to tell you
23:30
Jeff, I'm not really a big fan of microservices, the way it is
23:33
seen by the world. We in our industry, always have
23:37
this, you know, there is there is a flavor of the season,
23:41
right? In for the last few years.
23:43
It appears to be the microservices.
23:45
But ask all of us who have tried microservices from from the
23:50
beginning. There are issues with that as
23:52
well. And like it always happens, the
23:54
middle Mark middle path is perhaps the right bat, so we are
23:58
all beginning to settle down on a model, which is not monolithic
24:02
for sure, in terms of architecture but it's also not
24:06
too granular microservices, but yes, I chrysalises does help.
24:11
So we had to do. Almost 4:45 months of work in
24:15
terms of making the model applicable, the consumption
24:20
model applicable to our technology.
24:23
But if it'll work is I want to throw out a wild idea because
24:28
you know, I've been on both sides of of the I am industry.
24:32
So I spent the first half of my career you know, on the customer
24:37
client side. In other words, buying I am
24:39
Solutions and so one of the things I always struggled with
24:44
with buying software was well the software is already built
24:49
and yeah I'm going to call in for maintenance and things like
24:51
that, but how do I'm up with the price because you acquire me as
24:57
a customer. It's not like you're going to
24:58
have to build new software for me.
25:00
Yes, you're going to have to support me but that's the
25:03
maintenance and so more or less. How how should let me turn this
25:09
into a question? How should I, as a customer?
25:13
Think about the prices being charged to me and whether or
25:16
not, it's a fair price to pay, right?
25:19
I'm buying something that like a software program that's already
25:22
I've been written and whether I'm the customer or not, you've
25:25
already built it, you've already spent the money to build it.
25:28
So how do I, you know, compartmentalize in my mind that
25:33
I'm paying a good price or not? Very good question.
25:37
And, you know, the I think becomes option model is the
25:40
first model really addressing that question.
25:43
Because, you know, all this vile you bid a fixed price, whether
25:48
it was a Perpetual or in subscription for the first time
25:52
you're Not going to be the same, it depends on the return on the
25:58
or your return on. Your investment is going to
26:00
remain the same regardless of you use more or less, which was
26:05
not to earlier. So what I mean by that is that,
26:09
you know, if you consume more you pay more if you consume less
26:13
you pay less so there is no one single fee anymore.
26:17
So you know that's that's the answer to your question because
26:21
This conduction model for the first time is not fixing the
26:25
price up, upfront you not knowing as to how you're going
26:29
to utilize in, what's going to be a return on the investment
26:31
and so on. So this is an ideal model for
26:35
that. I think is interesting question
26:36
because a lot of people are out there thinking, okay, well, what
26:39
is this thing Worth to me and then is a highly subjective
26:43
answer, right? I think you've got a coin
26:46
collector, I will get a normal quarterback.
26:47
Okay, let's worth 25 cents. Some other person might look and
26:51
say, oh, That's this year. It has these markings on it,
26:54
which makes it more valuable. So, I think it is interesting.
26:57
I think part of it too, is you're not just paying for the
27:00
service, you're also paying for the R&D that went into it and
27:05
the more people who use it, the overall cost comes down, it's
27:08
very similar to, for example, the u.s. drug Market where
27:12
billions are spent on, you know, researching medicines, and
27:16
testing and things like that. And the prices are so high
27:20
because they need to recoup that.
27:21
That investment that they've made to sell it out, so they can
27:24
continue to invest. Now, I'm not calling the drug
27:26
Market great because it is a problem, but this idea of okay,
27:31
well, I'm paying it, it's more of a mindset.
27:34
I think of the consumer, like, it's very myopic.
27:36
I'm only paying for this piece of ham on my sandwich.
27:40
It's right there while she give it to me.
27:41
Okay, well, what did it take to get that piece of ham into the
27:44
position where you can get it? There was a truck at some point.
27:49
There was probably a pig. There's probably a farmer,
27:52
right? There's this whole supply chain
27:54
which is obviously come into light over the last couple years
27:57
with the whole pandemic. Strain that has put on that.
27:59
And I think it is interesting when we talk about who will
28:01
what's a good price? And I'll be honest, sometimes,
28:04
you know, I've been on the same same same as Jim, right?
28:07
I've been on the consumer side, buying these products and now
28:11
I'm on the other side of things, not necessarily selling product,
28:14
although obviously service is a big part of what we do from from
28:17
a data day-to-day perspective. But what is that worth?
28:21
And the ends. I think it's highly subjective.
28:24
It's difficult to put a value on it.
28:26
If I told you, hey, you know what, I can automate all of your
28:29
identity governance things for, you know, X number of dollars.
28:33
What is that worth to you? One company might say nothing
28:35
because we already have something or really simple.
28:38
We're happy with it or another one, I'd say it's invaluable
28:41
because that is not the, the that is not our sweet sauce.
28:45
We don't want to spend our money doing things that are not
28:47
Mission critical to the success of our business.
28:49
Elsewhere, for example, thinking, I think it's a super
28:52
subjective question but no. Would you agree with that or
28:55
feel free to not 1200? Yes I agree with you that it is
28:59
a very subjective question but let me bring it a few
29:02
interesting thoughts and over here because it's not so much
29:05
about what you're going to you. Give some examples and very
29:09
rightly. So it's not not so much about
29:13
the spend part of it as The Return part.
29:17
You know, if you look at it from that point of view, the the
29:21
consumption model is for the first time putting all the
29:25
pressure on the software manufacturer to deliver the
29:30
goods. All this while people have
29:33
purchased because they got an emerged by great demos looks so,
29:37
so sassy and you purchased it and then you eventually found
29:41
that you're not getting the return here in this model.
29:44
Just to tell you. Frankly if you look at our
29:47
pricing, if you get a chance, you'll see that that we don't
29:50
make any money. Money whatsoever in the minimum,
29:54
you minimum subscription. So there is a small tiny
29:57
subscription that is there which, of course gets adjusted
30:00
against consumption also, but in that you don't get make any
30:03
money, you start making money or we start making money only when
30:08
the customer really starts using the software.
30:11
So we are and for it to enable him to use the software is not
30:15
just the software that's important how we implemented,
30:18
who implements it for him. So we got to create a good echo
30:20
system. Of implementers.
30:23
We got to see that the implementation is done in a
30:25
simple way. To the the whole implementation
30:29
cycle is shortened, the support is very good from our site so
30:32
that the customer continues to use it.
30:35
So the entire pressure for the first time is now on the
30:40
software maker, not on the custom.
30:43
The second important point I want to make Jeff is that the
30:47
favorite model will doctor also says the same thing.
30:51
For the identity delivery today is going to be is the mssp and
30:56
this is a model which suits the customer very well because again
31:00
this is more like, you know, more consumption based and are
31:05
kind of pricing model in technology now is 100% aligned
31:10
with mssp delivery. So that's another important
31:14
thing that you got to see as to how easily the the software is
31:18
available to you. Not just the software to
31:22
delivered software implemented. Software is available to the End
31:25
customer and these are things that are possible.
31:28
Only that this model. Yeah, I think it's interesting
31:30
because the other thing too, is this model that we're talking
31:34
about, and it started with Perpetual, now we're such now
31:37
subscription. Now moving to pay per use, it
31:40
causes a challenge for some folks when we start thinking
31:42
about budgeting, because there is a, you know, the further you
31:46
shift to the right in that equation.
31:49
The unpredictability or Already of what I might be paying could
31:53
be an issue, the other thing that comes up and I hadn't
31:56
really thought about this until a couple of years ago, was the
31:59
difference between capex and Opex and how organizations
32:03
budget for these types of things is a lot of organizations work
32:07
on a cap, ex model where they say, hey we're going to set
32:10
aside five million dollars for some sort of improvement and
32:13
then they're able to kind of spread that cost over years, you
32:16
know, through accounting and things like that.
32:18
But their operations expense It is maybe not so high and when
32:23
you start talking about, you know, subscriptions and paper
32:26
use. Now we're really talking more op
32:29
ex and I sometimes question whether or not organizations
32:32
have even caught up to the subscription model because that
32:35
sometimes it's a challenge. And that's the other thing that
32:39
I think about is, you know, I think this I'd love to hear your
32:43
input capex versus op ex and how organizations should be thinking
32:47
about how to budget for this and then trying to address that.
32:51
Predictability. I think you guys specifically
32:53
have an interesting model with sort of minimums and maximums
32:56
and we don't want to turn this into a commercial but I would
32:59
encourage folks go look at ailanthus.com, check out the
33:02
paper. You paper paper paper, use if I
33:05
could say right because I think there is something there, we've
33:10
sort of got this hybrid between the two.
33:12
That makes a lot of sense, at least for me, but I'm curious
33:16
capex. Op X the predictability.
33:19
How do you, how do you address those sorts of things?
33:21
Yeah, so it's a question of do you really want to address it
33:25
because you know, when the moment you begin talking about
33:29
who I want to put a million dollars.
33:31
As you said for the next five years and we want to assign that
33:35
to Identity and access. You are forgetting one basic
33:39
thing that you you're not really looking at what to return.
33:42
You're going to get. You're only looking at spending
33:44
the money, right? And that kind of a model is
33:47
pretty much becoming dead except for a very large organizations,
33:50
be the fourth Bowser where they have no other way but to
33:53
continue doing it in that way because they don't know how to
33:57
do it any other way. But the smaller organizations,
33:59
the mid-market and the smaller corporate organ smaller
34:03
Enterprise, They are all looking to save money to make things
34:07
more effective for them to get higher return on investment,
34:11
rather than fixing the the total amount of money they're going to
34:15
spend the year after year. In fact, they're very happy.
34:18
We have spoken to a large number of cios and CFOs So, they're
34:21
very happy to have flexibility over there, and if they can save
34:26
every year, 10% or 20% over the last year, rather than fixing it
34:31
at a certain level and continue to spend that money Piero, they
34:36
would prefer that model. So having said that in our
34:39
model, we have certain predictability and their
34:43
customers who are looking to have that predictability.
34:46
As you rightly said, you can go to Atlantis at comment.
34:49
Take a look at more details with some Our folks to, to
34:52
understand, but we have provided enough facilitation in our
34:59
model, to take care of that as well, soba node Jeff and I have
35:03
gone back and forth about this model.
35:05
And, you know, I liken it to utilities like your electric
35:10
bill, he Likens it to, you know, the gas, you put in your car.
35:15
Obviously, you know, the price can fluctuate for both.
35:20
I kind of think about Out my electric bill in December.
35:23
I think it was like 45 bucks and my most recent electric bill, I
35:27
live in the south and run the air conditioner all the time
35:30
like 350 bucks. And so that's kind of that
35:34
predictability challenge. That concerns me is like, hey,
35:38
if I have an event that drives a soap.
35:41
Number one, I really wanted to ask you, do you like either this
35:45
analogies or do you have another analogy that's like, outside of
35:48
the, IT world that you would apply?
35:51
And And the second is, you know, from a tracking standpoint, how
35:56
can people kind of go in either, do a better job at managing what
36:01
that bill is going to be? Or at least have the visibility
36:04
into what that bill is going to be so jib.
36:07
First of all, you're not the first one talking about the
36:10
electricity bill and and the fuel your gas in the car.
36:16
Several people have asked me that question.
36:18
Yes that that's that's a A simple model, you know, you go,
36:23
you pay a certain amount of money for for a gallon of fuel
36:27
or for, you know, unit of electricity.
36:31
But here you blocked. You're talking about multiple
36:33
services. So, like, for example, password
36:36
reset could be One servers new user provisioning could be an
36:39
alder surface and they're going to be obviously different value
36:43
that you see under those services and the money that you
36:46
would be dealing too big. So it's a great analogy because
36:49
that's what really works out here.
36:51
That's that's a fundamental on which it is based, but the same
36:55
time you, you got to stop somewhere on that because this
36:59
is more complex than that, but the fundamental remains that.
37:02
It's based on consumption. The second part that you talked
37:05
about and again that questions been asked by multiple people to
37:08
me, you know, talking about electricity as a par
37:11
consumption, could be very high in Winter and very small.
37:16
And it could be 1 is to 3, kind of a ratio that.
37:19
So that's very unpredictable. How do you really take care of
37:22
that? Again, we have we've got some
37:26
wonderful dashboards, which are real time online dashboards that
37:30
we provide where you can really look at the trends that you have
37:34
where you look at not just what you're consuming, as as an
37:38
organization, but you can slice and dice it to departments and
37:42
for the first time and this model, make we're making those
37:44
things available where you can look at how the trends are.
37:48
You can see last year, what happened?
37:51
And if you want to smoothen that we have got in the model that
37:55
also possible. So we can smoothen that to you
37:58
for you so that you don't want to do.
38:01
One, two, three kind of consumption over the year.
38:04
You can smoothen that as well, but that will depend on the
38:07
trend your Trend and not the general Trend in the market.
38:11
So it's very specific to you. That's a beauty.
38:14
Yeah, I do like the idea of smoothing it.
38:16
I mean that's something that the electric company will let you do
38:18
is like what they know your consumption model they can.
38:21
Can kind of use a predictable, even per month, payment, things
38:26
like that. But but no, you've been super
38:30
generous with your time with us today, kind of talking about
38:34
this consumption based pricing model and as you know about our
38:39
show we like to end on a lighter note.
38:42
One of the things that we picked up on with I Lantus and we
38:47
understand you're the Mastermind behind.
38:49
Those is kind of a Spiritual focus on on your company and
38:57
identity and access management and really it's kind of a tie
39:00
back to yoga. And I said to Jeff, I think yoga
39:04
is just exercise right? What's the spiritual piece?
39:07
So I'm sure you're going to give us an education on that.
39:10
But the way we framed it up is what is the yoga pose?
39:17
That most describes I am I'm going to start with Jeff then
39:20
I'll give my answer, then we'll kick.
39:21
Take it to you because I know you're going to give us more
39:23
than just, it's some kind of posed or exercise.
39:28
But Jeff. What is the, I am yoga pose
39:33
that? Or what is that, the yoga pose?
39:35
That, that reminds you of? I am and why?
39:38
All right. Well, this is going to
39:39
definitely show some iater. It's all apologize in advance.
39:42
I know, yoga is more than just exercise and I think, you know,
39:45
I read a little bit of a Wikipedia article.
39:47
So I kind of consider myself a little bit of an expert.
39:49
There's different interpretations.
39:51
Based on whether you're in the west or the East and kind of
39:54
where it came from. I will take a view that I
39:59
believe I am is most represented by twisty three-legged down dog,
40:06
which is sounds as complicated as it is.
40:10
Because that is how it is, and I feel like if you're in the I am
40:13
space. As a practitioner, you're
40:15
probably spreading out a whole bunch of different ways that
40:19
aren't natural sometimes. But you we'll get it done.
40:22
And that's why I always have fun like this phrase of you behind
40:25
the scenes, there's like a bunch of.
40:26
I am Heroes that are actually making things work for an
40:28
organization, despite whatever the issues are that are out
40:31
there. So I think of twisty
40:33
three-legged down dog which is sort of like your your hands are
40:36
on the ground. You've got your feet and I've
40:38
got your back kind of arch and then you take one of your legs
40:41
and you try to pull it as far back as possible.
40:44
It sounds awkward because it is and I think that's that's the
40:46
one I'm gonna go with. Not bad, not bad.
40:49
I was thinking about this. Because we decided this was
40:52
going to be the question ahead of time.
40:54
And I know there's a series of poses called binds great.
40:58
And I feel like having been an IM practitioner, you're in a
41:01
bind a lot, right? You're just really uncomfortable
41:05
position and doing something that a human body is not meant
41:09
to do and you're sweating and all.
41:11
But what I shifted to was something a little more with a
41:15
positive lien, which is a pose called Warrior Two and by the
41:20
time you get into Warrior Two. You're, you know, you're really
41:24
building up that that lather, that good, sweat, and you're in
41:27
a position of strength but you're also in a position where
41:32
you have to have balance. So I think there's just so many
41:36
aspects that the I am practitioner has to have all
41:39
those things you have to have a little bit of experience.
41:43
In other words, you have to have been you're like Midway through
41:47
the routine at that point. And so that's I'm going to go
41:50
with R2 plus a sounds really cool.
41:53
So now, but node, maybe you could take.
41:55
I'm sure you. Do you have an eye in practice
41:57
where you do our? I'm sorry, a yoga practice where
42:00
you do some of these poses. So maybe you can start there but
42:04
then maybe you can educate us a little bit more going beyond the
42:08
exercise routine. Sure.
42:09
So very interesting question, thanks because this is one of my
42:14
favorite practices and as well as subject matter in which I've
42:19
been doing a little bit of work. So So deep washer that really
42:23
strikes me. When I look at, I am, is what
42:27
the call is called in Sanskrit, from where, you know, yoga uses
42:31
the Sanskrit as the original language.
42:34
It's called the serve on gassin, which means, full body posture,
42:39
and it's actually a combination of nine, different postures.
42:43
So it's one sweeping movement, you know, takes about maybe
42:47
about 30 seconds or 40 seconds. You are Actually doing nine
42:52
different postures. That's actually the synthesis of
42:56
the entire yoga, all the partial.
42:57
So they say that. Even if you're not doing
42:59
anything else, if you just do this, this is this is it.
43:04
And that's what I say to my customers and to the market
43:07
that, you know, you may not be doing some other things in the
43:11
information security. But if you're doing, I am that's
43:15
that's a full body partial. Like so you have 0.
43:17
So that's the washer that comes to my mind.
43:21
Having said that, you know, as Jeff, you rightly said yoga is
43:26
not about exercise. It's far from exercise, it's not
43:31
a system for the body alone. It's for the body mind, Spirit
43:35
bringing about certain a great balance between the three.
43:39
And I, if I can put it in a very simple way, it's about
43:42
controlling the mind. If you do that for a while, and
43:45
if you do it right, you will have your mind, the monkey mind
43:49
and a control, which is one of the most Difficult takes to do
43:51
for anybody. I've been doing some research in
43:54
the area of wall, yoga, how to use it for, controlling your
43:59
energy centers in the body. And that's being I don't know
44:04
whether you've heard, Jeff and Jim about a technology called
44:07
bio photonics in our body emits photons.
44:11
In the quantum theory, that was known long ago.
44:14
But now it can be seen and if you can measure the photons
44:19
coming out, the pattern of the photons coming out of your body,
44:22
you can really measure your physical and your emotional
44:26
states, physical and emotional states here.
44:29
And I'm trying to look at as one of my favorite practices right
44:34
now and the time that I'm spending and doing some research
44:37
to see as to how some of the things specially the breathing
44:41
exercises and yoga, how they can be used to cleanse to to find
44:49
solution to some of the problems with Body and mind system.
44:52
So if so, I think it's really interesting, I think it's really
44:56
interesting, the bio photonics is not something that I had
44:58
heard about, until you mentioned it.
45:00
So I definitely no expert on it. But it seems interesting.
45:04
Just from a, you know, study perspective, if I wanted to get
45:08
into yoga, where should I start? Very interesting question.
45:12
So, all the most popular yoga is is something which is, which is
45:19
got eight steps. In the first step has nothing to
45:22
do with posture signal. First two steps have nothing to
45:26
do with it. The first step is all about
45:28
training yourself a little bit and putting your energy of the
45:33
day in One Direction. So as human beings, what we do
45:38
we say hey we got to lose some weight, we got to become more
45:41
healthy and so we go and we join, join the gym and we're
45:45
spending an hour with that and you come out of there.
45:48
So the energy is being diverted is taken in One Direction.
45:50
Action. And you come back and two hours
45:52
later you were having a pizza. So, your energy now is traveling
45:57
in the opposite direction, right?
45:59
Or you never went to the gym and you're still eating the pizza?
46:02
Yes. Still eating the pizza or doing
46:04
something else. So the first step in yoga is to
46:08
try to channelize your energy in One Direction.
46:11
That's the first step. And the second one is, once you
46:14
have been able to do that, then you go and try to look at
46:18
setting. Some not exactly rules.
46:20
But some code of conduct for yourself that the Second Step
46:24
only in the third step, which is, the first true physical step
46:27
of yoga. You talk about learning how to
46:30
sit. And that's the most important
46:31
that's the beginning. If you're able to sit without
46:36
any, you know, without moving your body for even two minutes,
46:41
I think you've attained something.
46:42
That's the first step in you that discipline that convert
46:45
concentration. I would imagine is very helpful
46:47
as you kind of find some sort of Center, see Cool eyes against.
46:53
Okay? I know you've been very generous
46:54
with your time and want to let you get on with your evening.
46:56
You're joining us all the way from India which is fantastic.
46:59
So I know we got a lot of folks who are listening in that part
47:01
of the world that will be interested to hear this
47:03
conversation. We talked about Perpetual
47:07
license to shifting to subscription to.
47:10
Now, this option of paper use what are some final thoughts
47:14
that you might have that? The folks listening out there
47:16
might have been. So as you pointed out I think
47:20
this This model of purchase is is is the one that is going to.
47:27
There is no option because the customers need a model like
47:31
this, this is where the industry is going to go.
47:34
We are happy that we have set this trend up in the eye in
47:38
space. But as Jim Riley pointed out,
47:40
this is going to be fast forward.
47:43
And there are three to four years, and I think it would be
47:46
much more of paper use than subscription that you'll be C.
47:50
So my Final thoughts would be an advice to my to two areas of the
47:54
community members and I in to not just not just to the
47:59
customers but to people who are manufacturing software like us
48:03
to be looking at it seriously and try to do this over a period
48:06
of time. So because eventually we got to
48:10
look at what works for the customer.
48:12
Not work. What works for us.
48:14
And if we look at what works for the customer, things would work
48:17
out for us. That's what that's our belief in
48:19
Atlantis. Nobody's buying it node.
48:22
We're not going to stick around for a while.
48:24
So it's important. How about Jim final thoughts for
48:26
this week? Yeah.
48:27
Just thinking along those lines was you know, when I've worked
48:31
with clients over time and we get into our what is software
48:35
going to cost usually there's questions around.
48:38
Well, how much are you going to use the software?
48:42
How many administrators do you have?
48:43
It's hard sometimes to even get that information, but kind of
48:48
dialing it back. Like the, the more information
48:50
you have About how many workflows, how many logins you
48:53
have things like that. That's going to give you help
48:58
you with the predictability thing which I think is probably
49:01
the biggest hurdle to this model but I think this model would
49:07
revolutionize things and that in the in the end it's going to put
49:10
the power back in the hands of those folks who are making the
49:15
purchasing decisions. So given that.
49:18
I mean that's my wrap up on this.
49:20
Or Sation and just wanted to kind of go back to our original
49:23
point about Gartner in a couple of weeks.
49:27
But node you're going to be a gardener I'm planning to be
49:30
there. Yes.
49:31
Okay good. So hopefully we can meet in
49:34
person and other folks who are listening can meet you as well
49:39
and certainly reach out to us on LinkedIn and and connect.
49:43
I'm somebody who will accept pretty much every connection
49:46
that comes through. How about you just yeah, yeah, I
49:49
think, yeah, definitely. At us, we would definitely want
49:51
to do fist bumps, whatever the the greeting du jour is the
49:55
time. Looking forward to finally meet
49:57
you face-to-face below which be great.
50:00
You know, you talked Jim about some of those metrics that are
50:03
important to kind of figure out the consumption model and my
50:07
thought is those are things that you should probably already be
50:10
doing anyway as an IM program. How are you measuring success?
50:14
Do you have a dashboard that tracks, those sorts of things?
50:16
Anyway, if you don't think about it, right?
50:19
Doesn't doesn't mean you have to have It overnight, and a lot of
50:21
these things you kind of build up over time, but I think having
50:24
that dashboard of how many users, you know how many
50:27
provisioning actions are being taken, how many, it's
50:29
indications authorizations, you know, things like that.
50:31
It's certainly helpful to at least demonstrate, you know,
50:34
what is going on for my Denny perspective within an
50:36
organization but I'll leave it. There definitely will be a
50:39
gardener, you know, ping us. If you're going to be there,
50:41
we'd love to meet. Come watch us record a show.
50:44
Come be on the show. Well, I don't know if we have
50:45
any room slots that Jim's committed me now to an entire
50:48
week of editing. It sounds like four shows of
50:50
Wing week, but we'll go ahead and leave it there.
50:53
The node, I will leave in our show notes, a link to your
50:57
LinkedIn, so folks can reach out to you if they've got questions,
51:00
and I'll definitely put a linked for.
51:02
I Lantus.com IL EST en tus.com there as well.
51:06
So people can check out what you guys have going on.
51:09
Definitely check out the paper you stuff because it gives
51:10
interesting the model that you guys have come up with and I see
51:13
a lot of value in it. I am sure there are folks who
51:15
are interested they can reach out to you but not if that's
51:17
cool via our show notes or via LinkedIn.
51:20
So, With that we'll go ahead and leave it for this week.
51:22
You can find us on the web identity of center.com.
51:24
We're on Twitter at idea. See podcast the live stream will
51:28
return at some point but we tell how always have our replays on
51:32
YouTube, idac dot live and with that we'll go ahead and leave
51:35
it. Thanks everyone for listening
51:37
and we'll talk with everyone in the next one.
51:41
Thanks for listening to the identity at the center podcast.
51:44
If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and
51:46
visit us on the web and identity at the center.com.