There have been a rash of press releases recently from companies listed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Email Security Boundaries. The twenty vendors mentioned are categorized as either leaders, challengers, visionaries or niche players. Of course, out of twenty, there are bound to be at least a few forward-thinking companies there, but I think Google landed in the “Leaders” quadrant just by virtue of their incredible size more than actual leading technology. Of course, they acquired Postini, which was a good move on their part, but Google is still not a security company. They’re a company that purchased a security company, and that makes a big difference. While Postini’s technology may be quite adequate, it’s besides the point; in its capacity as a security vendor, Google is no specialist–they’re another major player who is now able to say, “oh yeah, we also have this.” In the area of security, there is still a lot to be said for having a company that does security as a primary focus, simply because it will always remain top priority in terms of R&D.

By the same token, Microsoft landed in the “Challengers” quadrant, and they’re definitely in the same kitchen-sink category of IT. Most of the others in the Magic Quadrant were dedicated IT security companies.

Let’s take a look at why Google made the grade and some of the cautions Gartner listed on Google as well. In a list of strengths, I was surprised to see the otherwise wonkish Gartner list Postini’s “cool” factor as even remotely important, but they did, and at the top of the list, too. But it’s the cautions that reinforce my earlier point, and Gartner says, “The focus on providing best-of-breed e-mail security threat detection, and enterprise-class functionality and support, may deteriorate as Postini becomes further integrated inside the Google organization.”

Pricing was also both a strength and a caution, with the three-buck-a-user deal being a strength from the dollars-and-cents point of view, but also a caution, since resellers most definitely didn’t like the new price point, and this is likely to seriously erode the reseller channel’s interest in offering it.