Microsoft buys Sybari and some Outlook Web Access (OWA) history

It appears that Microsoft is back in the merger and acquisition business. Saw the announcement of their purchase of security software firm, Sybari, on the MS Exchange Blog.

I think this solidifies Microsoft's strategy to build into their products anti-virus and security features. Kind of makes me wonder what will happen to companies like Symantec and Trend-Micro if and when Microsoft starts bundling anti-malware and anti-spam products into their software.

If you've used their beta anti-spyware tool, you know that they are quite capable of making a quality product that can take on their competitors. And of course, they can do it for free, or nearly free because it's a good incentive to get people to buy Windows, Exchange or whatever else they bundle it in.

On the Exchange related front, saw this interesting article over on "You had me at EHLO", the Microsoft Exchange team's blog, where Jim Van Eaton talks about the history of OWA.

OWA and later on the addition of RPC over HTTP, which allows Outlook client users to connect to their Exchange server securely without going through a VPN, were great value adds to the Exchange product. The increased functionality of OWA and RPC over HTTP, in particular, were the big reasons why my firm was sold on moving from Exchange 5.5 to 2003.

Any product enhancement that allows a firm to do business securely without VPNs is a huge plus in my book. VPNs are hard to manage and maintain and the typical requirement of a VPN client  reduces their usefulness.