Steve on Security

I’ve been pondering this topic for about a week, since Google announced the massive price drops for its services based on the Postini solution.

Predictions

Inbound Filtering/AV services will be $0 charge item by end of 2008. When Microsoft fully enters the market (they’ve been sitting on their Frontbridge acquisition, positioning for a who-knows-what big bang), they will drive the price down to zero and the lemming effect will ensue.

Alternate prediction: Google will be pre-emptive and strike first. Google wants ad revenue more than application users, anyway, IMO. Who is the prime mover is not relevant. This will include not only blind SPAM filtering and malware filtering, but also policy management (e.g. rule-based controls).

In tandem, eDiscovery, disaster recovery queuing and domain-based encryption services will be commoditized to the point of mass adoption, with price points near zero. Messaging security will become the minimum barrier to entry for email service providers.