Microsoft Wednesday announced that it has completed its purchase of FrontBridge Technologies, a company that provides managed services for e-mail security, compliance and availability.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. With the close of the acquisition, first unveiled July 20 , Microsoft will begin incorporating FrontBridge into its Exchange Server Group, according to the Redmond, Wash., software vendor. Prior to the acquisition, FrontBridge had 160 employees in its Marina del Rey, Calif., headquarters.

FrontBridge provides managed services to ensure a company's messaging infrastructure is secure, that its e-mail is always available and that e-mail archiving requirements are compliant with current government regulations, services that are called "e-mail hygiene" by industry analysts.

Microsoft plans to include technology that will provide e-mail hygiene in the next version of Exchange Server, code-named Exchange Server 12, which is expected to be released in the second half of 2006. However, the company said when the FrontBridge deal was announced that it also wants to give customers the option of having these services hosted and managed for them rather than having to build the secure messaging infrastructure themselves.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.