Okta and Atlassian are teaming up so that Atlassian's cloud customers can sign on with Okta 'for free, forever'

Okta

Okta co-founders Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest

• On Monday, Okta and Atlassian announced a partnership that allows Atlassian customers to use Okta with Atlassian's cloud products.
• Okta COO and co-founder Frederic Kerrest says it's also an opportunity for Okta to gain new customers from Atlassian's 138,000 customer base.
• As more Atlassian customers are moving to the cloud, they asked for identity management features, so Atlassian reached out to Okta.
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Atlassian's customers will now be able to use Okta for free, thanks to a new partnership that shows how enterprise tech companies are taking advantage of new business opportunities created by the corporate world's rush to the cloud.

The deal, announced on Monday, adds security features to Atlassian's cloud computing products, underscoring the growing importance of identity protection and security systems in the cloud. Okta, which manages identity and access, will integrate into Atlassian's cloud products, meaning that Atlassian customers can securely sign into popular products like Jira and Confluence.

"We're seeing this massive movement from on-premise based products into the cloud," Atlassian's vice president of product Joff Redfern told Business Insider. "When they choose Okta, what's unique about it, if you're currently an Atlassian customer and you don't have an identify product, we're going to give you Okta for free, forever."

For Okta, COO and co-founder Frederic Kerrest says, it's an opportunity to gain new customers from Atlassian's wide reach. Right now, Okta has over 7,000 customers, while Atlassian has 138,000 customers. While Okta's identity management product will be free for Atlassian customers, if they want more advanced security products or use Okta with other applications, then they can purchase them.

"It's an opportunity for us to expand our partnership with Atlassian and find net new opportunities ourselves," Kerrest told Business Insider. "That's an opportunity for us to have it flip from a free customer to a paying customer."

Atlassian originally launched with software that runs on-premises, but now most of its customers are moving to the cloud - now, more than 90% of Atlassian's new customers choose a cloud product. And in September, Atlassian announced new updates and packaging plans for its cloud products.

Read more: $32 billion Atlassian just made sweeping updates to its cloud products, as it changes with the times: 'We strongly believe cloud is our future'

As its cloud products became more popular, Atlassian customers started asking for this feature to use with those products, Redfern says. Atlassian decided it could either build its own identity and access management, or it could partner with another company.

Redfern says many of Atlassian's customers were already using identity management providers, but Okta was one of the most popular ones, so Atlassian reached out.

"We've made that drop dead simple with this relationship with Okta," Redfern said. "More and more companies are realizing, as they come into the cloud, one of the first things they tend to do is [say] 'Hey I can get a lot of benefits from having an identity provider.'"