With more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users globally, Postini’s services include message security, archiving, encryption and policy enforcement and can be used to protect a company’s email, instant messaging and other web-based communications.
“With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes,” Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt said.
“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,” he said.
Under the terms of the agreement, Postini will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google and while the agreement is subject to the usual closing conditions, it is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.
The Postini acquisition is all about enterprise customers, and Google continues to spruik its hosted applications as the future of enterprise productivity and communications applications.
Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets, and Personal Start Page, has been adopted by more than 100,000 businesses already, the company says.
Google corporate vice-president and Google Enterprise general manager Dave Girouard – who was a keynote speaker at CeBIT Australia in May – says more than 1,000 small businesses signed up for the Google Apps service every day.
“At the same time, large businesses have been reluctant to move to hosted applications due to issues of security and corporate compliance,” Mr Girouard said.
“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,” he said.
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