Hamey

Google have announced an acquisition deal of Californian company Postini for $625m. This makes it the third largest acquisition for Google second to DoubleClick and YouTube.

Postini has 10 million users worldwide and specialises in “message security, archiving, encryption, and policy enforcement”.

This would suggest a long term play for Google, as they move into the email corporate sector against heavyweights Microsoft and IBM. Google have been steadily pushing their “Google Apps for Your Domain” service and the take up has been good among small businesses but practically non-existent for corporations who demand tighter security and policy adherence; hence the Postini deal.

Importantly, Postini have a wider emphasis than just email. The focus on communication security and compliance, so that covers IM as well which is a great selling point to corporate customers.

With corporate email worldwide valued at $2.5b the acquisition is really chump change, assuming of course that Google can penetrate enterprise customers with their new technological toys. History says they probably can.

Google have always maintained a noble pursuit of providing technology that is infinitely scalable. An essentially “one size fits all” approach to design that has proved successful with individuals and small groups, now it looks like we are going to see a serious attack on enterprise customers that will validate the concept all the way.