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Google to retire Postini, migrate features to Google Apps

Web giant has built the e-mail security and archiving features into two Google Apps products, which it will transition to customers next year.

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Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Google plans to shut down Postini, the e-mail security and archiving product it acquired in 2007, shifting users over to Google Apps next year.

The Web announced the transition today, saying that it has spent the last year building Postini's features into Google Apps for Business, a professional suite, and Google Apps Vault, an e-mail archiving and discovery service.

"With this transition to Google Apps, you can receive similar email security, protection, and archiving, but through the more robust Google Apps service," Google said in a company blog post. "Google Apps also works with mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, so you don't need to switch to Gmail."

How customer services will transition:

 

Google said the transition will occur over the course of 2013, with customers receiving information about the transition process at least 60 days before their migration is scheduled to begin. Customers who do not wish to transition to Google Apps will see their Postini service terminated at the end of their contract.

The service currently has about 26 million users. Google acquired Postini for $625 million in 2007.

The video below offers a bit more about the transition: