Google building Postini features into Apps

IDG News Service - Google has started to move e-mail security features from its Postini service directly into its Google Apps collaboration and communication suite.

The long-term goal appears to be to merge all Postini functionality into Apps, so that IT administrators don't have to toggle back and forth between the two products.

"Today, we're excited to announce our first step in creating a unified Google Apps experience by moving some Postini features directly into the Google Apps administrative interface," wrote Adam Dawes, a Google enterprise product manager, in a blog post.

In the coming weeks, Apps administrators will see the first two Postini features being moved to the Apps management console: the Objectionable Content and Content Compliance e-mail security settings.

These two features are designed to let Apps administrators automatically flag e-mail messages that contain certain words, phrases and text or numerical patterns.

"And because these are built into the Google Apps infrastructure, admins will be able to use their existing user and organization structures set up for their domain to customize policies for different groups," Dawes wrote.

The new e-mail security features will be made available to the Education, Business and Government editions of Apps, but not to its standard edition, which is limited to 10 users.

Now that Apps for Education is getting Postini features, Google will stop offering new K-12 school customers Postini's Google Message Security package.

Eventually, once Google Apps has a native set of e-mail security features that is comparable to the ones in Google Message Security, they will have to use the ones in Google Apps.

"Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Government customers are welcome to try these new features but will not be required to transition until a later date next year," the blog post reads.