Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

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Fortiva acquired by Proofpoint - tread with caution

27-Jun-2008

Tags: E-mail Archiving and Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Fortiva

Fortiva, the Canadian SaaS vendor has been acquired by Proofpoint.

It's an interesting move for a couple of reasons. First and foremost the acquisition itself offers further evidence of a white hot market emerging. In the past year we have Dell, HP, Google, and Oracle all making bold moves into the space. But in this regard the acquisition by Proofpoint is a little unusual. Proofpoint, an e-mail security firm, is not a particularly large vendor; indeed it's quite small and is itself (like Fortiva) VC-backed. One start-up digesting another usually means the VCs see the attraction of beefing up an offering for acquisition or flotation.

So this acquisition unlike others we have seen recently does not mean that Fortiva has necessarily moved into stable hands. In some regards it suggests an "interesting" period ahead as investors pull together a unified company/offering. Clearly buyers need to get very comfortable about where things are headed before investing in a long-term vendor agreements. Hence we would have to caution buyers to tread carefully with Fortiva for the foreseeable future, a shame really as Fortiva certainly has some useful features, as we detailed in our evaluation of their service.

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