Google Boosts Mail Security with New Postini Packages

| Feb 8, 2008 | Enterprise Security, Internet/Managed Services - U.S.

| Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analysts: Amy Larsen DeCarlo, Andrew Braunberg

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

February 5, 2008 – Google has announced a series of security products Powered by Postini that deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for any business environment. Google's new security services work with any mail system, including Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell Groupwise, and with pricing starting at $3 per user per year can accommodate the budget of any business. Customers can sign up online and immediately begin to improve the security of their email.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Google’s release of three new secure messaging and archiving service suites, because they significantly challenge existing price points for basic email security and archiving functionality. Google is now offering basic message filtering for $3 per user per year, and this is without associated hardware or maintenance costs.

• Vendor Importance: High to Google’s security business, because this is the company’s most forceful attempt to push the Postini technology it acquired last year into the enterprise – and to help drive its overall efforts gain more real estate on corporate desktops. Google has begun to have some success in attracting SMBs to its software as a service model but is still not clear if these security applications will provide the gateway to full Google Apps adoption by the enterprise customers that Google desires.

• Market Impact: High on the messaging and managed security markets, mainly because of the price pressure these services will put on competitors and the fact that it is Google that is applying this pressure. However, this pressure is likely to be felt more in the SMB segment than the enterprise, at least initially. It is also worth noting there is nothing particularly new in the idea of offering security functionality through a subscription service. This is basically the model that all the leading anti-X vendors use to sell their update services – i.e., give the razors away and make up for the freebie in razor blade sales.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Several threat management vendors can point to these announcements as endorsements of their long time strategies. McAfee has been offering its Secure Messaging Service, which provides AV, anti spam and content filtering, for many years. MessageLabs has similarly offered anti-spam filtering services for years. Symantec also currently offers a subscription-based Hosted Secure Mail Service which filters e-mail for spam, viruses, and other unwanted content. These companies should highlight their histories in offering services but these companies as well as the rest of the market will need to reassess their pricing strategies.

• Microsoft’s messaging security offerings (i.e., Antigen-X) are currently offering as software solutions. The company offerings client security services (i.e., Windows Live OneCare) aimed at consumers and small businesses. There was a rumor late last year that Microsoft has plans to begin to offer its Forefront security software products as services in the future as well. The company should clarify what its plans are for security SaaS solutions and provide a roadmap if any new services are planned for this year.

• Trend Micro announced its SecureCloud SaaS platform last year. At this time, SecureCloud supports three security services: InterScan Messaging security (i.e., AV, anti-spam and anti-spyware), email reputation services and botnet identification services. Trend needs to continue to expand and integrate these services.

• These announcements will have industry watchers looking back to announcements that Symantec made early last year regarding its plans for the security SaaS market. At the time, Symantec introduced a beta version of Symantec Protection Network-Online Backup Service. This was described as the first of what would become a family of security and availability related services. That first service was schedule to become generally available before the end of 2007. Symantec needs to release Online Backup Service and provide a roadmap for additional SaaS deliverables quickly.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• SMBs should seriously consider Google’s newly bundled and priced secure messaging and message archiving services. The services are simple to implement and set a new floor for low cost email protection solutions.

• Enterprise customers will be a bit more hesitant and that is not a knock against Google’s services, but just a reality of enterprise adoption of SaaS solutions. Enterprises should keep in mind however that Google does support all leading mail servers. At the least, enterprise customers should take Google’s price list with them the next time they negotiate with their secure messaging vendor.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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