Postini users will have to convert to Google Apps by 2013 or lose access to their email archiving and security features, Google announced in a recent official blog post.
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Google Message Security and Message Discovery will be replaced by Google Apps for Business and Apps Vault, the company said, while Google Message Filtering and Postini Small Business Edition will simply no longer be offered.
"Over the past four years, Google has integrated the Postini business, including products, processes and personnel into our Enterprise division. This integration is moving into the next phase where new products and features developed on Google Apps platform replace the original Postini products. Postini customers can receive similar email security and archiving features, but on a more robust platform," said Google.
The company also said that the functionality provided by the Google replacements to Postini products will not be identical, though it said that the overall level of effectiveness would be "comparable." Existing contracts will be honored, though they will not be renewed.
New routing and filtering features based on Postini were added to Google Apps last week, as part of the transition to an all-Apps system.
Postini was acquired by Google for $625 million in 2007, in an effort to make the search giant's enterprise Apps offerings more attractive to potential customers. However, the integration process hasn't been problem-free, as performance issues and at least one outage have plagued the Postini products on Google's watch.
Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.
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