Google Secures Postini Deal

It’s official.

Google has sealed the deal for Internet security and compliance software maker Postini, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the search and software maker, according to a blog post published yesterday by David Girouard, Google’s Enterprise guru.

Google made some serious waves when it announced the $625 billion bid July 9, with some folks questioning the high valuation. I’ll defer to the cliche: You can’t put too big a price on security, not with the future of Google Apps hanging in the balance.

Google isn’t saying exactly how it’s going to apply Postini’s assets, which protect against spam in e-mail and support instant messaging and Web filtering, message archiving, encryption and policy enforcement.

An FAQ on the buy claims “Google and Postini are looking at a variety of ways to integrate our products. We don’t have any details to announce right now, but expect to have product news in the near future.”

But applying Postini assets to Google Apps–Standard and Premier Editions–is a safe bet. After all, Postini is already part of the Google Enterprise Partner program and has worked with Google
to create solutions that augment Google Apps for business users.

It will be interesting to see how Google uses Postini in its broadening Apps portfolio. In order to effectively challenge Microsoft in the enterprise, Google needed to shore up the defenses for Gmail, Docs & Spreadsheets and the other Apps goodies.

Postini isn’t a catch-all, but it’s a big step from a company who hasn’t dented the enterprise space. With more than 100,000 businesses signed up for Google Apps and counting, that may be changing.

While the buy is encouraging, Google has to work on adding records management and 24/7 global support, not to mention filling in the feature sets for Apps. Moreover, it has to convince businesspeople it is a viable alternative to Office, not just a $50 per-user, per-year puff pastry.

Google succeeded on that front with Capgemini earlier this week, only to be blasted by FUD from Microsoft.

Google has published an FAQ about what Postini brings to its large table here.