Microsoft Closes Deal to Buy FrontBridge -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft Closes Deal to Buy FrontBridge

By Scott Bekker
08/31/2005

Microsoft completed the acquisition of managed e-mail services provider FrontBridge Technologies and is beginning the process of integrating FrontBridge into the Exchange Server Group, the company said Wednesday.

Terms were not disclosed when the deal was announced July 20. Privately-held Front Bridge was based in Marina del Rey near Los Angeles. The company had about 160 employees, 4,000 customers and annual revenues estimated by analysts to be in the range of $25 million. The company offered hosted e-mail security, compliance and archiving services.

When the deal was announced, Microsoft officials said they planned to sell the FrontBridge services as a complement to the Exchange messaging server in the near term and later integrate on-premise Exchange servers with the hosted technologies.

Microsoft moved Wednesday to reassure FrontBridge's non-Exchange customers. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft, FrontBridge will continue to offer managed messaging services for IBM Lotus Domino and other currently supported SMTP-compliant servers in addition to Exchange, Microsoft said.

FrontBridge's messaging services are called Total Message Management and they cover three main areas -- Message Security, Message Compliance and Message Continuity. Security consists of managed anti-virus, managed anti-spam, policy enforcement and managed encryption. FrontBridge's compliance includes e-mail and instant message archiving, compliance reporting and policy enforcement again. The company's continuity services encompass business continuity, disaster recovery and mail store management.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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