When Google Inc. bought hosted security and compliance vendor Postini for $625 million in July, experts said Google was aiming to boost the security and compliance capabilities of its emerging Google Apps product. The speculation was that Google was hoping this move would attract larger enterprises as Google Apps customers.

Less than three months later, Google has announced that it is officially adding Postini’s security and compliance capabilities to Google Apps.

Naturally, larger companies with bigger security and compliance concerns might be tempted to consider Google Apps now. However, analysts and users have warned that Google Apps is a nice supplement to other office productivity suites like Microsoft Office. No one, not even the smallest SMBs, really sees Google Apps as a replacement technology. Most of the components of Google Apps still have the “beta” sticker on them, even Gmail, which seems as standard a Google App as apple pie these days. I feel like I’ve been using it since I was a wee lad.

Anyway, SMBs with compliance concerns will probably welcome the Postini features, too.

A fifth reprieve from Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) does not appear likely for SMBs.

At a forum for small businesses, John White, the director of corporation finance for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said the SEC has no plans to extend the deadline for small business compliance with the internal controls requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) corporate finance law. White has been issuing this warning all summer, but some SMBs don’t seem to be listening.

In that same forum, White also promised that the SEC would introduce several rules by the end of the year aimed at making it easier for SMBs to comply with SOX, such as a relaxed process for issuing stock options.

Companies with less than $75 million in market capitalization have been granted four extensions on compliance since the law was passed by Congress in 2002 because small business advocates have warned that compliance is too pricey for them.

But another extension seems unlikely if you take White at his word. SMBs will have to be compliant by Dec. 15. At this week’s forum White said small public companies should be acting now to prepare compliance. But it’s worth noting that he is speaking for only the SEC.

“I would just urge all of you that are advising small companies that, at least from this building (the SEC), we are not anticipating any extensions,” White said, according to Reuters.

Note that he said “from this building.” He is speaking only for the SEC. In the world of Washington, D.C., where nuance is everything, that leaves some wiggle room. Congress could easily act again to extend the deadline if business interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobby hard enough. But time is running out. SMBs should probably be acting as if no fifth extension is coming. You should heed White’s warning.

On the heels of last week’s announcement that it’s joining the OpenOffice community, IBM today announced the launch of IBM Lotus Symphony, a free desktop application suite, reports The New York Times. 

According to the report, Lotus Symphony consists of three free programs — word processing, spreadsheets and presentations –- and will compete directly with Microsoft Office.  

The Times continues: 

IBM’s Lotus-branded proprietary programs already compete with Microsoft products for e-mail, messaging and work group collaboration. But the Symphony software is a free alternative to Microsoft’s mainstay Office programs — Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Office business is huge and lucrative for Microsoft, second only to its Windows operating system as a profit maker… 

IBM executives compare this move with the push it gave Linux, the open-source operating system, into corporate data centers. In 2000, IBM declared that it would forcefully back Linux with its engineers, its marketing and its dollars. The support from IBM helped make Linux a mainstream technology in corporations, where it competes with Microsoft’s Windows server software. 

CNET News also has a good report on the Symphony announcement, while IBM executive Ed Brill writes today on his blog: 

I’m excited about this announcement on many levels. First, it shows the strategic nature, based on current and future plans, of IBM’s investment in delivering the editors in Notes 8 as well as through other channels.  Second, it offers something from the Lotus brand focused on the end-user/consumer. Third, it demonstrates the strength of IBM’s commitment behind desktop alternatives (Linux, ODF, etc) to the broader market — which should help with all distributions of OpenOffice.org-based editor tools, today and tomorrow. 

In the name of self-promotion, to get the full story on IBM’s decision to join OpenOffice and its implications for the open document format, check out this article I wrote on the topic last week.

In yet another sign that Web 2.0 isn’t just a passing fad fit for only wide-eyed startups with visions of grandeur, CIO Insight is reporting that Microsoft has a deal with Wachovia to provide the bank with a social-networking platform for its 100,000+ employees.

According to the report:

The nation’s fourth largest bank will roll out a social networking service for 110,000 employees over the next several months, giving workers a sophisticated knowledge-management platform that combines the user-friendly approach of the popular Facebook service with broad integration into Wachovia Corp.’s business applications.

The vendor for the big project isn’t one of the many contenders such as Visible Path, SelectMinds and Leverage Software in the burgeoning enterprise social-net market, or the ballyhooed Facebook itself. It’s Microsoft, which offers easy interconnection with other applications via its Office SharePoint Server product. Integration into the daily routine of business was a difference-maker in choosing the software.

So add Microsoft to the growing list of old-school, established tech companies jumping into the Web 2.0 pool. In fact, the pool’s getting a little crowded, with the likes of IBM and SAP already making their way to the deep end.

Labor Day is behind us and the summer is over, but for Yahoo and Microsoft, Rumor Season may just be getting started … again.

Yesterday, both the New York Times’ DealBook blog and TheStreet.com speculated that a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo, in an effort to take on mutual foe Google, might not be such a far-fetched idea after all, citing the release of a report by Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck.

According to DealBook, Peck writes in his report that Yahoo makes “an attractive acquisition candidate for either traditional media companies […] or for technology companies such as Microsoft.”

In the same post, however, DealBook blogger Andrew Ross Sorkin writes:

But neither Microsoft nor Yahoo has ever publicly acknowledged any takeover talks. The closest either one came to doing so was last year, when Mr. Semel, Yahoo’s chief executive at the time, said that his company had tossed around the notion of Microsoft buying a stake in its search business. But he quickly added that he found such a transaction deeply unpalatable, saying it “doesn’t make any sense.”

Similar rumblings of a potential Yahoo-Microsoft deal made the blogosphere rounds last spring, but dropped out of sight by Memorial Day. Despite Peck’s note to the contrary, it looks like it should have stayed out of sight. I’d say we can put this rumor to bed now, if not permanently, then at least for the next six to twelve months.

At least that’s what Google’s hoping for.

Linksys is dead. Long live Linksys. 

Longtime techies and countless bloggers worldwide were saddened last week when news broke that Cisco plans to ditch the Linksys brand name for its line of consumer- and SMB-related wireless networking gear in favor of a new, yet-to-be announced name and logo under the auspices of Cisco’s SMB division.   

Speaking to reporters in Europe, Chambers explained that Cisco “kept Linksys’ brand [when it was acquired in 2003] because it was better known in the
US than even Cisco was for the consumer. As you go globally there’s very little advantage in that.” 

But not so fast! Apparently, Linksys just received a stay of execution. 

A Cisco spokesperson told The Orange County Register that Chamber’s comments were taken out of context and that the Linksys name isn’t going anywhere.  

“Linksys consumer and (small-medium business) products will continue to be marketed under the Linksys brand and co-exist in the market with Cisco-branded connected home products over the near term,” spokesperson Karen Sohl told the OCR. 

So it looks like the Linksys name is safe, for the near term at least. Whatever “near term” means. And even if/when Cisco does kill off the Linksys brand, the gear itself will still be available, so I think we should be able to keep the melodrama to a minimum. 

I’ll keep you posted on any developments. In the meantime, watch and listen to Chambers’ comments and decide for yourself if his words were indeed taken out of context, as Sohl insists.