Google-Postini deal: More than meets the eye
Google and Postini? Makes sense to me. Postini adds vertical integration for Google's outsourced Gmail business. Large companies won't outsource e-mail without security while mid-market companies want turnkey bundled solutions. Now Google has all of the pieces in hand.
The e-mail marriage is obvious but there's more here than meets the eye. Postini has focused on broadening its offering to secure other forms of communication beyond e-mail. For example, Postini has a great portfolio for compliance including e-mail encryption, archival, and policy-enforced TLS. Not very attractive for consumers doing Google searches, but real credible stuff for enterprise organizations struggling to jump over new regulatory hurdles. It is a lot easier to outsource this stuff.
When I heard about this deal I liked it immediately but the price seemed pretty high to me. For $625 million, Google could have offered a small fortune to every spammer in the world rather than grab Postini's e-mail surveillance, cops, and toolbox. Nevertheless, this is pocket change for Google. Google gets the obvious e-mail security and a whole lot of other high value security and compliance services that move it much closer to the enterprise.
Jon Oltsik is a senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. He is not an employee of CNET.
wondering...
Google are acquiring the US market leader, a free cash flow, a
global brand, a compliance solution for their online service and
some of the worlds largest corporates as customers.
Since the announcement of Google mail for business we have
seen quite a take up amongst smaller companies, but a poor
showing for the more lucrative mid and upper mid markets.
Those who need to be particularly compliance aware.
Free data available on our blog shows Microsoft making a strong
play amongst the larger corporates. As yet no sign of Google
playing at this level but with Postini solving the compliance
issues. We see Google becoming a strong force in the amongst
the medium and larger businesses.