Identity management is predicted to be a major growth area: according to research from IDC, the anticipated worldwide sales for identity and access management systems will have approached US$550 million in 2005 and will rise to more than US$950 million by 2009. This predicted level of growth is not that surprising: as organisations, supply chains and customers have become welded together in the digital networked economy, IDM has become one of the cornerstones of security. On average, large companies have more than 75 applications, databases and systems that require authentication. The indirect cost of time spent repeatedly logging on has been estimated to be around US$670 a year for each member of staff.