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