Distribution of sales of email Hygene Services USA 2008

For the last 5 years we at BackChannel have been tracking the use of email hygiene services by organisations around the world.
We started with Messagelabs - now Symantec.cloud, Frontbridge - now Microsoft, Postini, MXLogic - now McAfee, Blackspider - now Websense in the USA and UK.  Over the intervening years we went on to include new and upcoming players like Google, Mimecast, Trend & zScaler and our range of deeply profiled regions expanded to 17 including France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Scandinavia.
Today we track the use of 40+ services by over 1 million organisations in upwards of 50 countries.
We are proud to have been able to help many of these companies achieve  sales and business development goals and in some cases to support company valuations and investment rounds.
We will shortly be releasing our January 2012 Analysis of the use of these services and we will post our findings for the Fortune Global 500 companies here on this blog.
In the mean time here is a fun interactive 2008 chart showing state by state distribution of the sales by those key players. Have fun comparing them and pondering on why Messagelabs was strong on the East Coast and Postini in the West.


2008 USA email hygiene service sales, by state.

Those of you who know us well may know that we also profile the use of all major telecoms services including Access, Hosting and CDN services.  So if you are interested in the services used by a customer or competitor, if you are selling into these markets or if your a CIO who wants to know what their company really buys around the globe; why not contact us on +44 (0)1223 968481 and see what an innovative  Cambridge company can add to the mix.

Mail Security: Market Growth Stalls in 2009

As we prepare for our end of year reporting and analysis season; some early news is that the BackChannel search engines have identified striking new information on the use of hosted security market.

Over the last few years these services delivered by the likes of market leaders Messagelabs, Postini and MXLogic have seen a 20% CAGR. We now measure overall customer numbers as static.

Despite having seen some of the most valuable/expensive buyouts during recent years; hosted security services are at last starting to feel the pinch.

Messagelabs acquired by Symantec 2008 for $695m
Postini acquired by Google 2007 for $625m
Surfcontrol acquired by Websense 2007 for $400m
Scansafe acquired by Cisco 2009 for $183m 
MXLogic acquired by Macafee 2009 for $140m

A lack of uptake by 'new-new'  customers has impacted sector growth. There also appears to have been a fair amount of churn amongst the existing install base, as vendors price aggressively for service contract renewals, in what has been pretty much a zerosum game in 2009.

Actual individual services amongst major organisations have dropped 1.5% to 2% depending on the geography and level of local competition. The good news for service providers and their investors is that this is mostly due to organisations consolidating their email domains, so installed base of user seats is holding steady.

Fortunately for the acquiring companies it's less of a downturn in the market, more of a stall and we predict that these figures will start to rise in the latter half of 2010 as confidence returns and the vendors switch tactics.  This remains no-brainer technology, economic circumstances don't make it any less so.


In the current climate we believe vendors should be looking at mopping up exercises  - pulling in rogue divisions of large customers that have done their own thing. Consolidating is always a good way for a customer to save money, and a supplier to add value.

If you're interested in pricing for the January 2010 Hosted Mail Security Market Report from BackChannel email info@backchannel.co.uk for more details.