Background

Dick Hardt founded Sxip (pronounced: "skip") in October 2003 with a vision of a simple, secure and open identity architecture that enables individuals to create and manage their online digital identities.

Sxip was conceived several years earlier while Dick was CEO of ActiveState, a leader in anti-spam technologies and tools for Open Source programming languages. He recognized that the internet lacks an intrinsic identity mechanism – a single standard identity system for users to unambiguously identify who they are.

Enter the notion of “Identity 2.0”, an open, standards-based, yet fundamentally decentralized identity model. First coined by us in January 2005, Identity 2.0 describes the concept of an ID that can be trusted and used anywhere and requires no centralized consultation with the ID authority that issues the credential. This is analogous to the real world, whereby for individuals to acquire services or receive special treatment, they need only produce photo ID to prove who he or she is, or a membership card to prove they are a valued customer.

The online world has no equivalent. Yet as more online transactions connect enterprises and users, this is precisely the model we need -- a system that makes it effortless to provide verifiable identity and reputation data issued by a third party.

Sxip addresses this by providing Identity 2.0 solutions that operate at an internet-scale enabling individuals, organizations and web services to communicate and transact in a manner that is simple, secure, and open. With current barriers to data exchange removed, users and online organizations will finally have the ability to engage in identity interactions as seamless and safe as showing that photo ID or affinity card.

Building upon that vision, Sxip Identity is committed to delivering identity appliances, software and related services that enables enterprises to manage access to disparate identity data sources, while also empowering the user. This coupled with Sxip’s commitment to customer success, establishes the company as a leader in identity and access management and the driver of Identity 2.0 infrastructure that scales to the true potential of the internet.

A summary of Sxip's corporate milestones is available on our weblog.