Google is promising to use newly acquired security and
compliance vendor Postini's technology to harden defences around
its popular line of hosted applications after completing the $625
million deal.
Postini, sells email and messaging security and compliance tools
has 35,000 customers. Its services include message security,
archiving, encryption, and policy enforcement to protect a
company's email, instant messaging, and other Web-based
communications.
Postini's security tools are sold to companies in a hosted
model. The vendor's Perimeter Manager service offers email content
filtering, and
spam blocking features. The software quarantines or tags
suspicious email before it reaches a company's perimeter.
Google has been selling Postini as a premium service to its
enterprise customers. The acquisition could enable the search
engine giant to better compete against Microsoft, which sells spam
and
virus protection with Exchange Server, said Peter Firstbrook, a
research director of information security and privacy at research
firm Gartner.
"This raises the profile as software-as-a-service as a model for
delivery," Firstbrook said. "Google is making a bigger bet on the
enterprise."
The acquisition also gives Google better access to email
administrators that are part of Postini's customer base, he said.
The Postini customers are already predisposed to using
software-as-a-service, Firstbrook said.
"With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to
delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all
sizes. With the addition of Postini, our apps are not just simple
and appealing to users -- they can also streamline the complex
information security mandates within these organizations," said
Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman of the board and chief executive
officer, in a statement.
The search giant claims its popular line of applications,
including Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets and
Personal Start Page, has been adopted by more than 100,000
businesses to date. But Dave Girouard, vice president and general
manager of Google Enterprise, admits security concerns have
prevented some companies from embracing Google tools.
"By adding Postini products to Google's technology, businesses
no longer have to choose -- employees get the intuitive products
they want, and the company achieves the security and assurance it
needs," Girouard said in a statement.
This is the latest in several moves Google has made recently to
bolster its security. In May,
Google announced its acquisition of security
firm GreenBorder Technologies Inc., which specializes in
sandbox technology to defend email and Web users from malware.
Around the same time, the search giant started the
Google Security blog.
The acquisition also reflects the larger trend of consolidation
in the IT security market, as standalone security vendors struggle
to survive and big IT infrastructure providers use acquisitions to
integrate more security into its product development lifecycles. In
the last month, for example,
HP has announced its acquisition of SPI
Dynamics and
IBM has announced its purchase of Watchfire
Corp.
While IT professionals have lauded the smoothness of some
acquisitions, such as the merging of
Internet Security Systems (ISS) into IBM and
the merging of
CipherTrust Inc. into Secure Computing
Corp., they say they've watched other vendors buy up good
security technology only to let it languish.
Quentin Gallivan, president and chief executive officer of
Postini, promises that won't happen when his company becomes part
of Google.
"We share a commitment to providing enterprise customers with
compelling technology alternatives," he said in a statement. "This
is an exciting milestone, one that will certainly lead to the next
level of rapid innovation."
Google said it will continue to support Postini customers and
invest in Postini products.
News Editor Robert Westervelt contributed to this
story.