Google has made yet another acquisition (this is number 20 in 2007), and it’s one of the biggest yet.
On Monday, Google announced it was buying out anti-spam company, Postini. Widely used by corporations, Postini is one of the three large anti-spam players in the marketplace. Analysts believe this acquisition will strengthen the enterprise anti-spam capabilities to better compete with Microsoft.
Analysts estimate that Postini’s revenue in the $40 – $50 million range, which suggests that Google paid a high premium with its $625 million cash offer.
Personally, I think this acquisition is less about fighting spam and more about bolstering Google’s suite of office applications designed to compete with Microsoft Office.
I think this goes to show the importance of online security. Google will now be able to take on Microsoft for business email accounts.
It’s pretty likely that both P&G and GE (current users of Google Apps) informed Google that to move away from MS Office & Exchange, other services would have to be built in to the overall Google offering.
Let’s look at what they also include; recent acquisitions, by Google, in brackets:
[a] Security (GreenBorder Tech),
[b] Anti-virus,
[c] Back-up/archiving,
[d] Web conferencing (Marratech),
[e] Presentations (Tonic Systems, Zenter).
It’s quite clear, MS Office & Exchange are what Google’s gunning for — but as an intergrated Web services (Google Apps) model.