AppRiver acquires Roaring Penguin

AppRiver, LLC, yesterday announced that it has acquired Roaring Penguin Software, Inc., an Ottawa-based email security firm.

The move that will bolster AppRiver’s footprint in Canada, further diversifying its global customer base, strengthening its technological advantages over competitors in the anti-spam and anti-virus space, and providing a local presence from which it can accelerate sales of its cybersecurity solutions as well as Office 365.

Roaring Penguin offers anti-spam and anti-virus email filtering software to a broad base of managed service providers, internet service providers, universities, governments and commercial businesses throughout North America and Europe.

“This acquisition is the first of a series of initiatives aimed at establishing AppRiver as the global go-to cloud cybersecurity and productivity company for SMB customers and the channel partners who serve them,” said Michael Murdoch, AppRiver’s president and CEO.

“The combination with Roaring Penguin gives us the ability to establish a leading Office 365 business in Canada, and the integration of Roaring Penguin’s anti-spam technology with SecureTide allows us to further differentiate our product offering. With our enhanced SecureTide product, expanded geographic presence and new Nautical platform, we believe we are well positioned to help our partners succeed in a cloud-centric world.”

Roaring Penguin’s founder and CEO Dianne Skoll said she was impressed with AppRiver’s reputation for incredible customer service qnd its long track record in the security space. She said, “Bothreassured us that our partners and clients will be well taken care of.”

The Roaring Penguin acquisition brings intellectual property, which includes innovative anti-spam techniques, that will integrate with AppRiver’s existing SecureTide platform and build on the strengths of both.

“Cybercriminals never stop innovating, and neither can we,” said Joel Smith, AppRiver’s CTO and co-founder. “Many companies in the spam and virus filtering space have become stagnant in terms of new technology and cutting-edge tactics. We intend to stay ahead of the pack and the bad guys by continuously improving our security. Roaring Penguin’s automated system will give us an important edge.”

Smith noted that Roaring Penguin’s machine-driven, statistical analysis methodology for identifying unwanted messages will make AppRiver’s proprietary MessageSniffer® engine more effective. AppRiver’s platform adds human cognition to advanced technology that will, in turn, improve the performance of Roaring Penguin’s filtering.

“Each system will be enhanced by integrating with the other,” he said. “The result will be spam and virus protection that is more effective than either could be individually or even deployed in-line. The whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.”

The Roaring Penguin acquisition also gives AppRiver a beachhead in Canada from which it can expand its highly successful Office 365 business. Changing business rules had effectively limited AppRiver’s sales of the Microsoft platform to the US, even as it continued to grow its cloud-based cybersecurity customer base in Canada. With a physical location in Ottawa, the company can once again offer Office 365 in the thriving market north of the border.

“Roaring Penguin becoming part of AppRiver just makes a lot of sense on many levels,” Skoll said. “We spent two decades developing and perfecting technology that will now be available to a much larger base of users as part of a true best-of-breed, spam and virus filtering system.”

Customers and partners of Roaring Penguin have been notified of the changes and the transition to AppRiver is expected to be complete by mid-year. Officials of both companies expect no disruption of service during the change.