Google shifts more of Postini into Apps platform

The days of there being such a thing as a Postini reseller are numbered, as Google has announced yet more integration of the email and archiving group into the Chocolate Factory's Apps package.

In a blog posting, Google said that Postini Google Message Security (GMS) and Google Message Discovery (GMD) customers will "gradually transition" onto the Apps platform later next year. Google has already shifted functions, like email archiving and discovery, into the Google Apps Vault and now the process will continue.

As from today, Google is beginning with new email routing features designed to make it easier for Apps users to set up and support generic email addresses like sales@ or support@. Such emails can now be rerouted automatically in Google Apps without complicated rules changes.

Google told El Reg that for resellers the payments structures (including revenue and profit margins) will remain the same, so there won't be any change that could mean immediate reconfiguration of sales portals.

"We will communicate additional details about the transition to our customers in the coming months," said Adam Dawes, product manager at Google Apps in a blog posting. "We are also developing tools and resources that will assist with the transition. After the migration, if customers are interested in exploring other Google Apps capabilities such Gmail and Google Docs, they'll be well positioned to do so."

And there's the rub. Postini is now pretty much absorbed into Google Apps, a process that started almost immediately after the Chocolate Factory bought it five years ago for $635m.

Google scheduled a conference call (since delayed) with resellers about this for Monday with "extremely urgent" and "Future of Postini" in the subject line – while it would have been more accurate to say "Postini has no future, we are all Google Apps now." ®