Graham Titterington, an analyst at Ovum, said: "This is symptomatic of all of the anti-virus vendors, they are trying to branch out and operate a bit more broadly in blocking nasties on the Internet. Trend Micro is trying to maintain itself on a level with what its major rivals such as Symantec are doing, so it makes sense to maintain its competitive position."
Kelkea provides an anti-spam service to a range of US-based ISPs such as AOL by tackling such content before it enters the network. As a result, according to Fernando Rynne, Trend Micro's global product marketing manager for Internet security, the purchase complements Trend Micro's deal with Postini, which handles spam at the gateway. The Kelkea service will be sold as an add-on to Trend Micro's core enterprise and service provider customer base.
