Microsoft News Tracker

Last year Microsoft acquired FrontBridge Technologies which provided a number of hosted add-on services (e.g. archiving, spam and virus filtering) for popular email servers including Microsoft Exchange. Now Microsoft had put its own stamp on the FrontBridge offerings as Joris Evers reports for CNET:

Microsoft has repackaged the hosted messaging service it acquired when it bought FrontBridge Technologies last year.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker has rebranded the service “Exchange Hosted Services,” crafting a new, per-user licensing model and future plans call for closer ties with Microsoft’s Exchange mail server, company representatives said in an interview Wednesday.
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The messaging service is part of Microsoft’s overall effort to offer services that complement nearly all its software products. Although the company has unveiled many such services for small businesses and consumers, the FrontBridge technology is one of few examples of what it intends to offer large companies.

Of particular interest for non-Exchange customers:

Despite the new Exchange-centric name, the filtering and encryption services do work with other e-mail platforms such as IBM’s Lotus software, the Microsoft representatives said. There are no plans to change that, they said.

The official press release is here.

Press Release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has completed the acquisition of FrontBridge Technologies Inc., a leading provider of managed services that help address corporate e-mail compliance, security and availability requirements.

Originally announced July 20, the acquisition of FrontBridge allows Microsoft to deliver services for enforcing compliance through archiving, ensuring e-mail availability in the case of a disaster, and improving protection of employee inboxes from viruses and spam. FrontBridge, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, will continue to offer managed messaging services for multiple e-mail platforms such as Microsoft® Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and other SMTP-compliant servers currently supported by FrontBridge.
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FrontBridge partners are sharing the same enthusiasm for the acquisition. “Sprint Nextel has existing alliances with Microsoft and FrontBridge that will only be strengthened by their integration,” said Randy Ritter, product marketing vice president of Sprint Nextel. “We are especially excited that Microsoft will continue to support the FrontBridge platform-agnostic strategy that enables us to grow and expand domestic and international opportunities for customers seeking best-of-breed message security, compliance and availability technologies.”

With the close of this acquisition, Microsoft begins the process of integrating FrontBridge into the Exchange Server Group, fully committed to delivering uninterrupted service for customers. Microsoft will continue to provide high-quality customer support for the complete range of FrontBridge managed services offered before the acquisition and will continue to work closely with FrontBridge partners.

Lots of interesting aspects including the platform agnosticism.

Filing an older item:

Microsoft to buy email security provider FrontBridge:

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, said on Wednesday (July 20 - ed.) that it would buy FrontBridge Technologies Inc., its second acquisition this year of an e-mail anti-virus protection provider.

FrontBridge provides an outsourcing service that allows companies to have their e-mail and instant messaging scanned before it reaches internal corporate networks. FrontBridge’s subscription service also allows companies to back up their messages and comply with regulations.

In February, Microsoft said it would acquire Sybari Software Inc., which develops software that protects e-mail systems from worms and viruses, as well as spam, or unsolicited e-mail.

That’s how Reuters titles their report:

Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday that it had settled a lawsuit against Scott Richter, whom it identified as a former “spam king.”

Microsoft said that as part of the settlement Richter and his company agreed to pay $7 million to Microsoft.

Richter and his company will file a motion on Tuesday to dismiss bankruptcy proceedings they filed in March in the U.S. bankruptcy court in Denver, according to a joint statement by Microsoft and Richter.

The settlement is conditioned on dismissal of the bankruptcy cases.

A separate statement from Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel Brad Smith said the company will reinvest all of the money including $5 million which will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes.

Brad Smith’s open letter has more.

At CNET, Joris Evers provides an update on Microsoft’d Sender ID counterspam proposal titled Sender ID’s fading message. As you would expect from the title, it isn’t a rosy picture. Even worse,

About 1 million domains currently publish SPF records, Microsoft said. That’s much fewer than the 71.4 million domains that had been registered worldwide by the end of last year.

There is evidence to suggest that quite a few of the technology’s adopters are senders of junk e-mail. Out of a sample of more than 17.7 million e-mail messages taken in late June, a little more than 9 percent were from domains that published an SPF or Sender ID record, according to spam-filtering company MX Logic. About 84 percent of those authenticated messages were spam, it found.

“The majority of the adoption has been by rogue senders trying to get some legitimacy for their messages,” said Scott Chasin, the chief technology officer at Denver-based MX Logic.

For spammers, publishing a valid record means they will pass any Sender ID authentication part of a general spam check. Earlier this year, Microsoft said its Web-based e-mail service Hotmail would start flagging messages without valid authentication. Later this year, the company plans to introduce “tougher filtering on nonauthenticated e-mail,” Craig Spiezle, director of Microsoft’s technology care and safety group, said in June.

“The spammers have more of a motivation to go and do it than most other people,” said Forrester analyst Paul Stamp.

Well, at least it cuts out the spammers with forged addresses.