Cisco buys Exchange-a-like vendor PostPath

Updated with more commentary 4.16pm UTC. Hello, Techmeme.

Suddenly, things are getting interesting again in the Exchange-alternatives market.

The quintessential growth-by-acquisition specialist, Cisco (CSCO), has just announced that it's acquiring PostPath.

Once again, Cisco makes a sound investment in an email technology vendor. Just like it did with IronPort. Great choice.

These are the clever guys who reverse-engineered the Exchange client protocol, MAPI/RPC, and the related on-the-wire details needed to make a vanilla install of Outlook talk to a non-Exchange mail server with full fidelity. Impressive stuff.

Despite Om Malik's analysis, this is quite a bit different from Zimbra.

Of all the other Exchange alternatives, PostPath has the most interesting architecture. And I say that as one who has years emotionally invested in the HP OpenMail technology ;-)

All the others rely on additional software on the desktop. In the case of OpenMail/SamsungContact/Scalix/Domino/etc., a MAPI service provider "plugin". Or, like Bynari/OpenXchange/etc., a separate app that synchronized an IMAP store with an Outlook.PST (personal store file).

I think Cisco fell out of love with Microsoft a while back. Something to do with VoIP support in Exchange and how Cisco thought it was Microsoft's partner but it turned out that Microsoft was competing with them. Nothing familiar there at all...

Sounds like Cisco wants to offer SaaS collaboration, based on PostPath and WebEx. Whoever said the email world has become dull and uninteresting?

Thanks to Jeff Brainard for the tip.

Crypto vendor Identum bought by Trend Micro

It's official, so I can now write about it. Trend Micro and Identum today announced that Trend is buying Identum.

Identum is an encryption vendor, which does away with certificates -- which are difficult to manage -- in favour of encryption keys that are based on a user's "identity" -- typically the email address.

On the face of it, this is similar technology to Voltage Security's IBE, but with better performance, simpler administration, and arguably better security.

Identum chose not to offer a federated model. Instead, it's a service, based in a super-secure bunker in "an undisclosed location" (well, I could tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you).

Congratulations to Andy Dancer and the rest of the Identum crew for successfully getting this interesting technology out of Bristol University, incubated, and flipped.

Scalix bought by Xandros

My spies tell me there's big changes afoot in San Mateo (and smaller changes in Reading).

Despite the strength of the underlying technology (HP OpenMail, yes I'm biased), Scalix didn't seem to be making its numbers. From the reports of "13 engineers and sales support staff" I imagine that a number of people got made redundant recently.

Xandros and Scalix have been working together for a while now, so I suppose this acquisition makes as much sense as any.

Presumably Scalix now can't get sued by Microsoft for violating Exchange patents? ;-)

BlackSpider Acquired... Again

Less than nine months after SurfControl bought BlackSpider, it seems that Websense is buying SurfControl. Wow.

BlackSpider is an email- and Web-filtering service. Variously described as "managed", "hosted", "on demand", or "in the cloud", the BlackSpider service competes with the bigger fish such as MessageLabs, Postini, and Microsoft -- the service it acquired with FrontBridge.

In related news, BlackSpider revenues are now about £5,500,000 (US$11M at today's excruciating exchange rate). 40% growth ain't bad.

My chums at BlackSpider must be rubbing their hands with glee. James, Jeff, John, Jonathan, Kevin, et al -- the beers are on you.

PS: calling SurfControl and Websense's PR/AR teams: how come I had to read about this in the Sunday Times first? (Bizarrely, in an article about Peter Gabriel's We7.)