Google expands business options thanks to Postini acquisition
By Joel Hruska | Published: February 05, 2008 – 10:42PM CT
This new service is the latest in a series of moves designed to make Google and its products more attractive to enterprise IT departments. The search company added IMAP support to Gmail last year, in a move that was more likely to appeal to corporate customers and/or businesses looking to host their e-mail services on Google’s servers.
Postini-based spam filtering is now available (and compatible with all major e-mail clients) starting at just $3 per year per client. Google’s security services scale upwards in price and features from there. The highest tier of service is $25 per year and includes Google Message Security along with a full year of message archiving, retention, and discovery. All of these new services are fully compatible with a number of e-mail systems, including Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Novell Groupwise.
Google’s new “Powered by Postini” product line is also another piece of ammunition in the search giant’s ongoing battle with Microsoft over both online business collaboration and local office application housing. The vast majority of consumers and businesses still rely on Microsoft Office as a solution in both areas, but Google is betting that the combination of an attractive set of features and aggressive pricing can steadily whittle customers away from Redmond.
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