1. Chase and Google announced:
Chase and Google are committed to helping small businesses grow. Through Mission
Main Street Grants, businesses can apply for a $250,000 grant from Chase. Rally support
from customers and friends to get 250 votes to be eligible.
We decided to post our application so people could know more about the Gluu
story…
Tell us about your business. What inspired you to start your business? How is
your business successful? What makes it unique?
In 2009, Mike Schwartz founded Gluu because he felt it was too hard and too expensive
for organizations to manage identity and web access management system (wams). After
reading “The Big Switch,” by Nicholas Carr, he became convinced that a utility approach
for IAM made sense, and that such a service could be built using open source software.
Today, the Gluu Server is used by 20 universities, a few large organizations, and we’re
expanding globally. Our open source OX project is one of the best OAuth2 servers
available.

2. How is your business involved with the community you serve?
In 2010, there was no OAuth2 server that provided support for OpenID Connect, which
we saw as an important new protocol for authentication. We started the OX open
source project to write one. According to the last completed OpenID Connect Interop
results, it was the most comprehensive server. Recently, we launched a crowd funded
effort to the fund OAuth2 plugins for Apache. With the help of 30 individuals and three
companies, we achieved our goal.
What would a $250,000 grant mean to your business and how will you utilize
the funds to ensure long-term growth and stability?
We believe the approval of a new OAuth2 standard for authentication OpenID Connect,
will increase demand for our offering. It is very hard to find funding for small
businesses that write open source software for new identity standards. $250,000 would
give us the ability to develop additional features for our open source platform, and
would help us add additional resources to pilot projects to help showcase the potential
of the technology.

3. What challenges can you identify for your business, and how do you plan to
overcome them?
Meeting the challenge of “ease of use” and “fanatical support” are not easy for any
organization, especially one that specializes in complex authentication systems. To
achieve this, automation is an important part of the strategy–we try to stay calm and
automate all things… There are no easy answers but through continuous
improvement, we keep getting closer to the goal.
Describe the talent and skill of your employees, and how they contribute to a
successful business.
Gluu is a diverse team. We have team members in the US, Ukraine, Bolivia, India,
Norway, China, and Cameroon. The founder of Gluu, Mike Schwartz, is a leader in the
digital identity space. The success of the OX project is a testament to the skills of the
developers. The OX platform is leading the market for OAuth2 authentication and
authorization, and could play in important role in making the Internet a safer place
for consumers.
Article resource: https://www.smore.com/y584s-go-gluu-get-a-google-grant