Google Elbows Into Security-Software Fray

As for Postini, its email security service is a small part of the overall security market, which also includes gateway appliances, desktop security software, server protection, and network protection, McAfee points out.

For Websense, however, a bigger challenge looms.

Websense acquired SurfControl for about $400 million in a bid to attract more small businesses as customers and add email filtering capability to its portfolio.

"Websense dominates the web-filtering market, which is growing at an unimpressive rate," says Daniel Greenberg, chief marketing officer for Tumbleweed(TMWD Quote). "They were looking at messaging security as a hot market and one reason they acquired SurfControl was for its email filtering products."

Websense now faces a formidable rival in the Google-Postini combination. Websense declined to comment.

While not exactly yet in Google's cross hairs, it won't be long before other companies like Symantec(GOOG Quote) find themselves being outmaneuvered in the security business by Google.

The Google security juggernaut will only get stronger from here, says Hoff. "Google's toolbar and apps will get more intelligent," he says. "And to that end, Google will continue to make investments in anti-phishing, IM security for Google Talk, and voice-over-IP security to bolster its recent purchase of Grand Central."

Earlier this month, Google bought GrandCentral, a start-up that offers users the ability to have a single phone number and all calls routed to that number.