Symplified

About Symplified

Symplified operated in the Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) sector, offering a hybrid cloud platform designed to streamline user access to applications while enhancing security and ensuring compliance. The company was founded in 2006 by Eric Olden and Hazen P. Moore and was headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Eric Olden, a serial entrepreneur with a deep background in identity management, had previously founded Securant Technologies and was a co-author of the SAML standard, a key protocol for web security. This expertise directly informed Symplified's mission to address the complexities of identity in the burgeoning cloud market.

The company's core business was providing a comprehensive identity and access management (IAM) solution. This service catered to IT organizations needing to manage user access to a growing number of both on-premises and cloud-based applications, such as Salesforce.com, Box, and Microsoft Office 365. The platform's features included single sign-on (SSO), directory integration, centralized user provisioning, strong authentication, and mobile device support. Symplified's business model was based on subscriptions, and by 2014, it reported having over 4 million subscribers. A significant milestone was a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services in 2009, which made it the exclusive SSO provider in the AWS marketplace at the time and contributed to its market presence.

Backed by venture capital firms including Ignition Partners, Allegis Capital, and Granite Ventures, Symplified established itself as a notable player in the SaaS identity management space. However, in July 2014, the company's technology assets were acquired by RSA, the Security Division of EMC. The deal was described as a fire sale, leading to the shuttering of Symplified's main operations, although RSA retained a number of its engineers to integrate the technology into its own identity portfolio. Following the acquisition, founder Eric Olden went on to other leadership roles, including a position at Oracle and later co-founding another identity management startup, Strata Identity.