The Google-Postini deal

BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker on Google's purchase of Postini:

Yes, Google's $625 million deal for spam-fighter Postini adds another business application to its portfolio. But when I heard about it, I thought only one thing: Our bosses will gain an ever more powerful tool to search and analyze our e-mails and messages.

[...]

As Google storms into the market, more managers will be able to search employees e-mail the way they now search the Web. Imagine being able to call up every e-mail in the enterprise over the last month, for example, that mentions a key competitor and an upcoming product or service. Want to see it as it's happening? Sign up for an alert for certain keywords. It doesn't have to stop there. Once these data are searchable, it will become ever easier for managers to apply advanced analytics to corporate messaging. They'll be able mine these data for the latest trends of words and subjects that employees are writing about. Mapping the social networks inside and outside the company will be a cinch. And as automatic reading programs improve, companies will also be able to track the rising and falling sentiments of their work force.

Google with Postini: Searching Our E-mail (BusinessWeek Blogs, Stephen Baker, 10 July 2007)