Vista equity partners to acquire Ping Identity

Ping Identity announced yesterday that it has agreed to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners, in a deal that is scheduled to complete in Q3 2016. Vista is a technology focused private equity firm, with a proven track record of investment into private and public software companies. Please read full press release here.

At ProofID, we understand that change of ownership of a software vendor can cause uncertainty for customers; as strategic and platinum partners of Ping we also have a lot invested in their future, so last night we took the time to have several conversations with senior executives from Ping in both the UK and the US to better understand the context surrounding this deal.

Following these conversations, our very clear message is that this an extremely positive move for both Ping and its customers. The key fact is that through this deal, Ping will retain its independence for the coming years whilst being in a much stronger position to accelerate development of its product roadmap and its wider identity defined security strategy. With Ping already in a position of technical leadership in the industry, this is very exciting for us at ProofID as it will increase the range of solutions we are able to offer to our customers, and it should more than reassure Ping’s customers that not only will planned investment in product development continue, it has every chance of being accelerated.

Next week we are travelling to the Cloud Identity Summit in New Orleans, the leading annual identity management conference hosted by Ping. When we’re not busy delivering our talks and hosting the inaugural ‘Ping and Tell’ global Ping partner event, we will be listening closely to the keynote speeches and continuing conversations with the Ping exec team to gain a fuller understanding of the impact of this announcement. We’ll post a follow up to this blog after the conference to bring you up to date with what we learn.

In the meantime, the main message is (with apologies to Dad’s Army) – don’t panic! – this is good news all round.