Although the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business applications and cloud computing development environments are getting the lion’s share of the attention in the press today, the most prevalent form of on-demand services continues to be hosted email and security services.

Email and security management are escalating challenges for IT and business decision-makers facing greater demands for real-time communications from their end-users, coupled with growing concerns about viruses, hackers, compliance and litigation.

As a result, an increasing proportion of companies and non-profit institutions are choosing to ‘out-task’ their email and security management to third-party hosting companies and managed service providers (MSPs).

However, enterprises and on-demand service providers alike are also recognizing that email, security, storage, archival, e-discovery, business continuity and disaster recovery are all intertwined. Therefore, IT/business decision-makers are seeking providers who can service as a strategic source for these services and providers are seeking to … Read More »

Google made two announcements this week which received limited attention because they had been anticipated for some time. Nonetheless, these two new offerings will still have an impact on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services markets.

Google’s first announcement unveiled a series of security “products” based on the email message filtering, encryption and archiving capabilities Google acquired when it purchased Postini. Although Google refers to these offerings as products, they are being sold on a subscription service direct to customers or via channel partners who can package these capabilities into managed services.

Google’s objective when it acquired Postini was to fortify its messaging and archival capabilities so it could appeal to a broader cross-section of business customers, especially large-scale, publicly traded enterprises who are facing stricter compliance requirements. Google’s new Message Filtering, Security and Discovery offerings provide a solid, yet simple and … Read More »

IBM’s acquisition of Arsenal Digital Solutions is the latest transaction driven by the growing concern among businesses of all sizes that they have to do more to protect their electronic files in order to safeguard against natural disasters and satisfy escalating regulations.

What makes this trend even more interesting is that it has brought greater attention to the fundamental advantages of using a “hosted”, managed service to respond to these business concerns. This has made a widening array of storage, e-discovery and other managed service providers (MSPs) very attractive acquisition targets for an expanding assortment of potential buyers.

Here are a few of the acquisitions which preceeded IBM’s announcement,

Seagate $185 million purchase of EVault
EMC’s $76 million acquisition of Berkeley Data Systems Inc.’s Mozy storage service
Autonomy’s $375 million acquisition of email archiving service provider Zantaz Inc.
A series of acquisitions by Iron Mountain, including … Read More »