MessageLabs is to acquire US-based enterprise instant
messaging service provider Omnipod to broaden its secure data
offering.
MessageLabs provides managed and secure e-mail services to
12,000 businesses in 80 countries.
This year it has already extended its services to include web
scanning and e-mail encryption between enterprises.
Graham Titterington, an analyst at Ovum, said, “MessageLabs
should be able to speed up the development of Omnipod's services
and meet the need to put both e-mail and instant messaging under
the control of consistent policies and centralised archiving.”
Titterington said MessageLabs would be able to extend the range
of instant messaging networks that its clients could interact with
to include all the major public networks and platforms used for
corporate IM services.
He said MessageLabs was expected to add secure voice over IP
services and mobile messaging systems to its portfolio at a later
date.
“The notion of a single managed communications service working
under consistent policies will be attractive to many
organisations,” he said.