Microsoft to Purchase FrontBridge

Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday that it would buy FrontBridge Technologies Inc. of Los Angeles, its second acquisition this year of an e-mail anti-virus protection provider.

FrontBridge provides an outsourcing service that allows companies to have their e-mails and instant messaging scanned before they reach internal corporate networks. FrontBridge’s subscription service allows companies to back up their messages and comply with regulations.

In February, Microsoft said it would acquire Sybari Software Inc., which develops software that protects e-mail systems from worms and viruses as well as spam, or unsolicited e-mail.

Microsoft, which has made a major push over the last three years to improve the reliability and security of its software, said it expected to close the FrontBridge acquisition by the end of September. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Asked whether Microsoft planned to bundle FrontBridge’s services with its Exchange e-mail server business, Kim Akers, a marketing manager for Exchange, said that FrontBridge would continue to offer its service separately as an add-on to Microsoft’s products. “Basically, what the customer gets is a clean e-mail stream,” Akers said.