Google has announced a new suite of security products which the company says will provide businesses an affordable way to improve the security of their email.

The security services ‘Powered by Postini’ work with any mail system, including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, and are designed to deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for businesses.

Customers can sign up online and pricing for the services starts at $3 per user per year.

“As threats rise in volume and complexity, and compliance requirements pile up, IT is struggling to find the resources to keep up,” said Google director of product management, Scott Petry. “Now, Google can take care of this for you. Organizations of all shapes and sizes can get access to Google’s industry leading security and compliance technologies.”

The services on offer, according to the company, include:

Google Message Filtering

    * filters incoming spam and malware
    * for companies looking to handle the growth of spam, virus and other email threats, and want to shift the burden off of on-premises resources
    * $3 per user per year

Google Message Security

    * includes Google Message Filtering, plus enhanced virus detection, outbound processing, and content policy management
    * for companies worried about growing external security threats and internal risks, such as email data leaks or content compliance violations
    * $12 per user per year

Google Message Discovery

    * includes Google Message Security, plus one year of message data archiving, retention, and discovery
    * for companies seeking to reduce security exposure, and improve legal discovery readiness and message compliance
    * $25 per user per year for one year of archived data (additional years of data retention available separately)

The new packages are part of the Google Apps platform and are available immediately at www.google.com/a/security, direct from Google, and through channel partners, and can be deployed within hours, the company says.