ARE PASSWORDS
BECOMING PASSÉ?
W A Y U P W A Y D O W N
APPLE
Apple achieved record
quarterly sales, buoyed
by strength in China
and the increasing
importance of its
services business. MICROSOFT
Managing to thrive
amid the COVID-
19 pandemic, strong
quarterly results were
built on the backs of
gaming and cloud.TESLA
Tesla’s position in
the middle is only
due to the tailing off
of the precipitous
stock market rise it
experienced in 2020. GOOGLE CLOUD
Google’s Cloud
business is less
developed compared
to competitors, with
the company revealing
it lost $5.6bn in
FY2020. IBM
The venerable IBM
experienced its fourth
successive quarterly
fall in revenue, despite
a renewed focus on
cloud and AI.MAR 21
Beyond Identity hopes to rid the world of one
the bugbears of modern life: passwords.
The company is fronted by Jim Clark (Netscape)
and Tom ‘TJ’ Jermoluk (@Home Network).
HOW DOES BEYOND IDENTITY WORK?
Beyond Identity logs users in with X
certificates. That’s the same certification used by
your browser for ‘https’ web pages.
CAN COMPANIES USE BEYOND IDENTITY?
They’re the primary focus of Beyond Identity’s
work. The company claims ditching passwords
will save money and strengthen security.
IS BEYOND IDENTITY EXPENSIVE?
No, it’s just become free to use with unlimited
users and upgrades. There is an ‘advanced’
package (at $6/month) which allows more
elaborate installments.
SO THE FUTURE IS PASSWORD FREE?
If Beyond Identity has its way, yes. The days of
‘forgot password’ links and stringent character
rules could soon be over.
Beyond Identity is on a mission to
eradicate passwords from our lives,
and increase security as it does so
technology-magazine.com 11