FrontBridge buy increases Microsoft's messaging security options

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MICHAEL OSTERMAN ON MESSAGING
07/26/05
Today's focus: FrontBridge buy increases Microsoft's messaging
security options

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Microsoft-FrontBridge part of bigger picture
* Links related to Messaging
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: FrontBridge buy increases Microsoft's messaging
security options

By Michael Osterman

Last week's announcement by Microsoft that it plans to acquire
FrontBridge Technologies marks another - and a major - push for
Microsoft into the messaging security industry.

FrontBridge, one of the leading managed service providers,
offers a wide range of hosted services, including anti-virus and
anti-spam filtering, outbound content scanning, message
archiving, e-mail encryption and other services. The company
currently has about 3,100 customers around the world. The
decision to acquire FrontBridge
<http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/072005-frontbridge.html>
follows Microsoft's acquisitions of Sybari and Giant.

What does this acquisition mean for the messaging market? First
and most clearly, it signals that Microsoft is taking security
ever more seriously by acquiring some of the better vendors of
messaging security capabilities. Instead of simply providing
basic security functionality in its products and thereby leaving
plenty of room for third parties to provide enhanced
functionality as it has done in the past, Microsoft is going
head-to-head with messaging security vendors by offering
best-of-breed capabilities from leading and well-respected
vendors using multiple delivery models - in-house and hosted.

The acquisition of FrontBridge also will help bolster the
managed service model for messaging hygiene and related
services. Many organizations are resistant to the notion of
managed services. Microsoft's entry into this market should help
to spur growth in the managed services space by making the
biggest software company a key provider of these services.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the acquisition of these
messaging security vendors by Microsoft signals that security is
now inseparable from basic messaging functionality. For example,
no one buys a car that includes just basic airbags or a basic
anti-lock braking system and then looks for a third-party
provider of better capabilities to replace them. Instead, these
systems are simply integrated into the vehicle and increasingly
offered as standard equipment. Similarly, anti-virus, anti-spam,
anti-spyware and other capabilities are so critical to the
proper operation of a messaging system today that they are
getting subsumed into the messaging system itself. Microsoft's
continued acquisition of messaging security vendors (which I
believe is certainly far from over) is fairly clear evidence of
this continued integration.

Just like it is no longer possible to purchase a word processing
application that does not include a spell checker (in the
mid-1980s it was possible to do so), it will one day be
difficult or impossible to purchase a messaging server that does
not also include sophisticated messaging security capabilities
baked right in.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Verizon joins managed security game
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3760>

2. Future-proof your network
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3540>

3. VoIP security threats: Fact or fiction?
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3761>

4. The ROI of VoIP <http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3543>

5. Appliances replace DNS, DHCP software
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3541>

Today's most forwarded story:

Verizon joins managed security game
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg3763>
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Michael Osterman

Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research
<http://www.ostermanresearch.com/>, a market research firm that
helps organizations understand the markets for messaging,
directory and related products and services. He can be reached
by clicking here <mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com>
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