Multi-protocol, federated identity management sounds like a great way to sign on to a complex buyer network, but the reality of implementation is somewhat daunting.

That's what Oblix found out last year after it released the first version of its SHAREid identity management product for use by e-business "hubs," such as that operated by Southwest Airlines. The company has found that the hub operators do not want to be responsible for managing the identities of users of its partner firms.

To address this concern, Oblix has released SHAREid 2.0, which aims to simplify the task of having e-business hub partners allow their users to employ Web single sign-on (SSO).

SHAREid 2.0 is interoperable with OASIS standards SAML 1.1 and 1.1, WS-Federation and the Liberty Alliance. Design for broad distribution to partners and customers, SHAREid integrates with existing portal environments and includes its own lightweight application server.

The product's functionality includes: SmartMaps, an automatic means of managing user accounts by mapping a user identity in one company to an identity in another; SmartMarks, an automatic means of supporting bookmarks to protected Web pages; and SmartWalls, built-in protection against a partner sending identity assertions about users from a different partner's domain.

"Many companies want to integrate with their partners, but they don't want to manage the accounts of the users of those partners," says Rick Caccia, director of product management for Oblix. "We are starting to see our core customers buy this product at five and 10 at a time and give it out to their partners. Regulatory compliance is driving a lot of it."

The SHAREid Application Provider Edition enables companies to give remote SSO to partners and customers that need access to its applications. Pricing begins at $10,000 per server. The SHAREid Remote Access Edition allows business partners to authenticate locally, while accessing a remote portal application. Pricing for the Remote Access Edition begins at $5,000 per server.