Apple looking to deploy 1Password company-wide, company buy-out denied [u]

Apple is reportedly planning to deploy AgileBits' 1Password software across its entire workforce, claimed a report on Tuesday, but the same report alleging that the developer was going to be acquired by Apple was outright refuted.

The deployment, covering some 123,000 people, has involved "months of planning," BGR said citing an anonymous source. This includes not just corporate-level staff but retail workers, and even family members, since Apple is allegedly offering each worker a family plan with support for up to 5 other people.

Only 100 employees are expected to start using 1Password this week, but usage should reach full levels within the next month or two.

Apple is said to have made stringent demands in exchange for the contract, including a maximum four-hour response time for customer support, and translations of every support page into every major international language. To meet Apple's phone needs, AgileBits is claimed to have turned to a third-party call management service. The deal is also specifically for the standalone version of 1Password that syncs through iCloud, rather than one that uses other cloud providers like Amazon, which Apple is said to have rejected.

At AgileBits, every employee is said to have been paid a bonus, up to six figures in the case of top-level executives.

The BGR source indicated that AgileBits' annual revenue is normally around $5 million to $10 million, but that Apple would likely pay two to three times that amount if it goes forward with an acquisition. AgileBits CEO Jeff Shiner was supposedly overheard talking about an "Apple acquisition" at conference room in the company's Toronto offices.

At first glance, the acquisition makes very little sense. Apple's Keychain has much of the functionality of 1Password, minus the cross-platform nature of the latter.

Not clear is what would happen to the cross-plafform nature of the company after any acquisition. Additionally, how 1Password for Enterprise would be impacted is not at all clear at this time.

None of it may come to pass, however. A source inside Apple corporate not authorized to speak for the company was skeptical of the entire report.

"We haven't heard anything about this," the source told us. "Why? The Keychain does 95 percent of this already."

AppleInsider is continuing to pursue details surrounding the report.

Update: While neither confirming nor denying a contract to supply 1Password with Apple, AgileBits insists that no acquisition is in the cards.

Rumours of my acquisition are completely false. My humans and I are happily independent and plan to remain so.
— 1Password (@1Password) July 10, 2018

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30 Comments

boxcatcher 274 comments · 9 Years

About 6 years ago

This story is bizarre.

Why would Apple deploy a third-party password vault app? To support employees who want to use Chrome...?

Even acquiring the company would only serve to support use-cases outside the Apple ecosystem (e.g., enable an Apple user to pull down an iCloud Keychain password on their Windows machine at work), which is 180-degrees out of phase with Apple's historical practices.

Tribruin 5 comments · 6 Years

boxcatcher said:

This story is bizarre.

Why would Apple deploy a third-party password vault app? To support employees who want to use Chrome...?

Even acquiring the company would only serve to support use-cases outside the Apple ecosystem (e.g., enable an Apple user to pull down an iCloud Keychain password on their Windows machine at work), which is 180-degrees out of phase with Apple's historical practices.

Take a look at 1Password for Business. It is much more than a simple password manager. It allows companies to create different vaults and manage password (and other data) and control what the users have access to. For example, an accounting department might need a set of passwords for various excel spreadsheets. If multiple people need access to these files, how do you control the password? Send an email to everyone? What happens when one person leaves the department and the passwords need to be changed? How do you notify all the current users of the new password? What about when a new person starts? Just email them the password.

With 1Password for Business, a company could create a new Vault called Accounting. You assign permissions to individual users (or even a user Group). Any one with access to that vault can access the passwords at any time. If someone new is added, just added them to the permitted list. Someone leaves, remove them from the access list (and, if needed, update the passwords on the files and in the vault.)

I pay for and use 1Password for Families. My wife, dad, son, and I all have our own accounts. I have several vaults, each with their own permissions. I have a personal vault (for all my personal data), I have a "Financial" vault with passwords for our Financial websites, (only myself and wife have access to it), and I have a "Video" vault with has our Netflix, HBOGo, etc. accounts (everyone has access to it.) There is no way to do this in Keychain.

Tribruin said:

boxcatcher said:

This story is bizarre.

Why would Apple deploy a third-party password vault app? To support employees who want to use Chrome...?

Even acquiring the company would only serve to support use-cases outside the Apple ecosystem (e.g., enable an Apple user to pull down an iCloud Keychain password on their Windows machine at work), which is 180-degrees out of phase with Apple's historical practices.

Take a look at 1Password for Business. It is much more than a simple password manager.

Got it, thank you -- poor assumption on my part that it was just the simple password manager component.

loopless 343 comments · 16 Years

I agree that 1Password is much more than a simple password manager - I have been using it for a long time.

However, the iOS keychain is now much more convenient than 1Password as a single user password manager.

I have several apps/web sites that prompt me regularly for a password. With keychain, I can unlock the keychain quickly with touch id, then keychain enters them directly from the "keyboard" - the suggestions seem always correct and match up with the app/website.

With 1Password I would be switching back and forth to the 1Password app to get the username and password.

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

loopless said:

I agree that 1Password is much more than a simple password manager - I have been using it for a long time.
However, the iOS keychain is now much more convenient than 1Password as a single user password manager.
I have several apps/web sites that prompt me regularly for a password. With keychain, I can unlock the keychain quickly with touch id, then keychain enters them directly from the "keyboard" - the suggestions seem always correct and match up with the app/website.
With 1Password I would be switching back and forth to the 1Password app to get the username and password.

Should become much easier when the next round of upgrades are ready. Apple is adding an API that third party password managers can hook into.