News

Microsoft Closes Deal to Buy FrontBridge

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.

Featured

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.

  • Report: Security Initiatives Can't Keep Pace with Cloud, AI Boom

    The increasingly fast adoption of hybrid, multicloud, and AI systems is easily outgrowing existing security measures, according to a recent global survey by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and exposure management firm Tenable.

  • World Map Image

    Microsoft Taps Nebius in $17B AI Infrastructure Deal To Alleviate Cloud Strain

    Microsoft has signed a five-year, $17.4 billion agreement with Amsterdam-based Nebius Group to expand its AI computing capabilities through third-party GPU infrastructure.