Visto makes Good

Visto has taken rival pushed email vendor Good Technology off Motorola's hands, doubling the size of the company and expanding the offering into the enterprise.

Visto broke even last year, following extensive cost cutting and staff layoffs, and now has aspirations towards the enterprise market into which Good has managed to penetrate, and it seems that Motorola was only too grateful to be rid of the operation.

Motorola paid more than $400m for Good in 2007, absorbing the company into its Enterprise Mobility division that has been happily turning a profit for years while the mobile-handset division drags the company into the ground. Visto won't say how much they've paid Motorola for Good, but it seems likely the agreement isn't as simple as a cash payment - scheduled payments over time, or in response to performance, are equally possible.

Visto already supports a huge range of handsets, more than 400 according to the company, so it's not Good's client technology that it wanted. Good Technology servers are of interest; the application management and VPN capability. Most important would seem to be the brand and the customer base, with CEO Brian Bogosian pointing out that the company is now well equipped to compete for government contracts - always a good place to be during a recession.

No cost cutting is expected - staff at Good are all being retained and the combined company, which now totals around 400 employees, isn't planning to close any offices or even cut duplicated services, at least not yet.