Rivals slam Postini price drop

Price revamp is "terrible news" for partners, competitors claim

Postini resellers could lose out from dramatic price drops enacted by new parent Google, rival email security vendors have asserted.

Google yesterday announced a series of new hosted security packages for businesses starting at $3. The price of the vendor’s top-end Google Message Discovery package, which is aimed at firms seeking to reduce security exposure and improve message compliance, has been slashed to $25 - reportedly from around $100 previously.

The new services work with any mail system, including Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Novell Groupwise.

However, rival Webroot claimed the revamp may impact reseller margins.

Neil Hammerton, vice president of SaaS development at Webroot, said: “This appears to be terrible news for Postini’s reseller partners who will see their deal values slashed literally overnight. One has to question whether a reseller earning a fraction of its historical revenue will be able to offer the same service and support as previously.”

Hammerton also argued Postini had been forced into the announcement because it lacked faith in its feature set.

“On the face of it, dropping prices by 75 per cent appears to be good news for the customer; however, to me it clearly indicates a complete lack of confidence in the technology behind the service,” he said.

But Peter Lorant, head of Enterprise EMEA at Google, hit back: “With these new packages we are bringing enterprise-class messaging security and compliance offerings to companies of every size, regardless of their IT infrastructure,” he said.

“We expect our partners, who have been key to our growth in EMEA, to benefit from the reach of the Google brand, the volume of new customers, recurring revenue stream from a loyal customer base and the opportunity to sell additional services. By making these products simpler to buy, implement and support, our partners see a great opportunity to increase their customer base and accelerate the adoption of SaaS.”