Novell and Atos Origin, the IT services company, are expanding their global partnership to deliver identity, security and compliance solutions as a service for cloud environments. Leveraging Novell’s Identity and Security Management technologies and Atos Origin’s proven Identity, Security and Risk Management solutions and cloud capabilities, the companies will set a direction to deliver security and compliance as a service which can be applied to both highly flexible cloud infrastructure services and traditional enterprise IT environments.

The global partnership expansion will enable the development of solutions that leverage Novell’s intelligent workload management technology along with the scope and experience Atos Origin offers in delivering some of the world’s most trusted and secure business-enabling IT services. As part of the agreement, Atos Origin will use Novell’s Identity and Security products to provide world-class levels of cost efficiency as well as quality in the information security and compliance service space.

“Managed security service providers and ISPs, as well as other providers of security through the “in the cloud” medium, can offer security at reduced costs,” said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst, Gartner. “Organizations will find these delivery methods increasingly attractive because they can potentially save on the cost of fulfilling security needs, as well as take advantage of skills provisions that may be lacking in-house.”

“Both Atos Origin and Novell are well positioned to enable confident and flexible access to IT and business services both in traditional IT environments and on the cloud,” said Mark N Jones, Director of Identity, Security and Risk Management Business at Atos Origin. “We already have a solid track record in developing and delivering innovative cloud services. The expansion of our partnership with Novell and others will help us to enhance identity and security solutions such that our clients can take advantage of the agility and cost saving opportunities of security as a service in and outside cloud environments.”

“In this rapidly changing economic climate, IT organizations need flexible solutions to gain a competitive advantage while also meeting identity security challenges. This is the basis of our approach to intelligent workload management.” said Markus J. Krauss, VP Service Provider Novell EMEA. “By combining our identity and security solutions with security services from our global preferred partner Atos Origin, we can offer customers broader choice, including on-premise, off-premise, and shared services solutions.”