Website www.messagelabs.com Acquisition date October 8, 2008 | Founded 1999 Parent organization Symantec | |
 | ||
Type Acquired by Symantec Corporation in 2008 Products Email, web and Instant Messaging security Headquarters Gloucester, United Kingdom | ||
MessageLabs was a company, founded in 1999 by brothers Ben and Jos White and partners, providing cloud based software as a service integrating messaging and web security services. MessageLabs provided a range of managed security services to protect, control, encrypt, and archive communications across Email, Web, and Instant Messaging.
On October 8, 2008 Symantec announced the acquisition of MessageLabs for a cash sum of £310 million plus US$154 million. The deal closed on November 14, 2008.
The White brothers, along with MessageLabs' financial director Stephen Chandler, invested a share of their proceeds in establishing Notion Capital.
History
In 2005 Messagelabs acquired Omnipod.
In 2006 MessageLabs ended a strategic partnership with ScanSafe, a competing security company, with the release of an in-house web security product titled Web Security Service Version 2. A resultant court judgment brought about by ScanSafe required MessageLabs to notify all prospective clients that the Version 2 service is not based on ScanSafe technology.
In 2007 the company split from Star Technology Services, the original founder of MessageLabs.