While Google’s plans to buy e-mail security service provider Postini clearly are designed to give the search giant some much-needed enterprise allure, the move also means one less independent player in the messaging security market – an arena once flooded with startups that now is being picked apart by giant vendors looking to plug the holes in their product line.

Google’s $625 million bid for Postini -- which would make the security company a wholly owned subsidiary -- is a good move for the acquirer, says one analyst.

“It’s a reasonable acquisition for Google, given the perception of security concerns among large enterprises -- they want to make sure any vendors they work with have enterprise-level security,” says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research. “This gives them a very clear message for those folks who have concerns about enterprise security.”

With the acquisition, Google gets the nuts and bolts of Postini’s security technology -- including hosted e-mail, Web, compliance, instant messaging, encryption, and archiving services -- that Wettemann expects Google will extend to its own suite of on-demand applications, including Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets, and Personal Start Page.

Google also gains access to Postini's 35,000 customers -- many of them in the enterprise space -- including Circuit City Stores, Hormel Foods, Merrill Lynch, and a host of prestigious law firms. Although Google claims more than 100,000 businesses are using Google Apps already, the company itself admits the vast majority of those are small businesses.

With this acquisition Google “gets the names of 35,000 e-mail administrators who are already predisposed to software-as-a-service,” says Peter Firstbrook, research director with Gartner. Previously the most contact Google had with enterprises was related to search or portal technology. “Now they’ve got the contact information of the people who are exactly the people they’re going after,” he says.

In addition, Postini can teach Google how to deal with corporate customers. “Google has deep pockets, and tends to kind of shoot in all directions to see what sticks to the wall; that’s not what enterprises want,” Firstbrook says. “Postini has to instill some enterprise business discipline into Google. In enterprises they don’t want new features by the week, and if they don’t work oh well, they want a road map and direction.”

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