Salesforce has acquired an Austin, Texas-based startup called Toopher, which has developed an Android and iOS app that authenticates a user's identity by accessing the mobile device's location information.
The latest acquisition will likely bolster Salesforce's collection of mobile-based security solutions as more and more of Salesforce's business clients, which include LastPass, MailChimp, and the University of Texas in Austin, increasingly turn to smartphones and tablets to conduct business.
The acquisition was announced by Toopher founders Josh Alexander and Evan Grim over the Toopher website. Salesforce spokesperson Karly Bolton also confirmed the deal but declined to provide financial details of the acquisition.
"While we will no longer sell our current products, we are thrilled to join Salesforce, where we'll work on delivering the Toopher vision on a much larger scale as part of the world's No. 1 Cloud Platform," say Alexander and Grim. "We can't imagine a better team, technology, and set of values with which to align."
Established in 2011, Toopher's claim to fame is a two-factor authentication app that allows users to automatically authenticate access to services if the app recognizes the user's location, such as the home or at the office. If the app detects an unrecognized location, it notifies the user and allows him to deny or approve the request.
"Toopher is the only solution that lets you automate that second step from safe locations like your home or office, so now you're only bothered when a login is out of the ordinary - like when you're in a new location or being hacked," says Toopher on its App Store description page. "Now, nobody can log in to your accounts without going through you first, even if they have your username and password."
Salesforce has been active in building its own collection of access control technologies, which now include Login Flows and OpenID Connect. Last year, Salesforce announced Login Flows, a tool that allows businesses to customize logins and include additional processes, along with the Winter 15 release of Salesforce.com. Additionally, the company was instrumental in the development of OpenID Connect, an authentication protocol used for mobile apps.
"Salesforce's acquisition of Toopher's modern authentication capabilities makes sense when considering the fast-growing Identity Management as a Service (IDaaS) market," Mark Diodati, vice president at research firm Gartner, tells ZDNet. "These capabilities are considered 'table stakes,' so having them will enhance Salesforce's competitive capabilities."
