In 2014, Microsoft made its first step into the IDaaS market with the 2014 release of its Azure Active Directory (AAD) Premium service. Since then, the hardware and software technology giant has already made a large impact on the identity security market. Currently, Microsoft houses a variety of digital identity solutions, including:

Azure Active Directory: Azure AD is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service, which helps employees and access resources in external resources, such as Microsoft Office 365 and the Azure portal, and internal resources, such as apps on corporate networks and intranet. Azure AD is intended for IT admins, app developers and Microsoft 365, Office 365, Azure or Dynamics CRM Online subscribers.

Azure Blockchain: Azure Blockchain allows users to create smarter, more efficient supply chains, reduce fraud, verify transactions more quickly and create disruptive new business models with Azure blockchain services. Users can implement Azure’s three-step approach to blockchain to build a consortium network, simplify governance and management and integrate blockchain solutions with systems and tools. Some of Azure’s related blockchain products and services include Azure Blockchain Service, Azure Blockchain Workbench and Azure Blockchain Development Kit.

Identity Overlay Network (ION): ION is a Sidetree-based DID network that runs atop the Bitcoin blockchain and is based on an emerging set of open standards that has been developed by working with partners in the Decentralized Identity Foundation. The approach improves the throughput of DID systems to achieve tens-of-thousands of operations per second.