Postini security fed into Google Apps

Google Apps Premier Edition now boasts email security and compliance services, following the company's acquisition of Postini.

Although many businesses have starting using Google's web-based application suite, some have held back citing security concerns. Google intended that the Postini acquisition, announced in July, would overcome these fears.

"With Postini, we saw the potential to deliver a more complete hosted solution for businesses of all sizes," said Google's vice president and general manager of enterprise, Dave Girouard, on Wednesday. "We are quickly adding Postini's market-leading security and compliance capabilities to Google Apps Premier Edition to give businesses more control over the administration and security of these applications."

The addition of Postini's technology to Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) means that users can now better configure their spam and virus filtering; implement various policies, including a centrally managed outbound-content policy; restore messages that have been accidentally deleted in the last 90 days; and give administrators access to all intra-organisational emails.

The storage in GAPE has also been increased from 10GB to 25GB per user, and a new email routing feature lets users run the system alongside existing email applications.

Both new and existing Postini users are being offered a free, extended trial of GAPE, and Google says it will continue to offer Postini's services on a standalone basis.