Current trends in the email archiving marketplace [part 1]
March 5, 2008 at 4:53 pm (archive email, business, domino, e-discovery, eDiscovery, electronic discovery, Email Archiving, email compliance, email retention, email security, exchange, exchange 2007, GroupWise, Malaysia, message archiving, news, score card, thoughts)
In this entry I am going to take a look at a handful of email archiving press releases from over the past month and see if I can ascertain a general market direction. Without naming any companies directly, I am going to provide a summary of the press release and a link if you wish to take a further look.
-Company A presents an email archiving score card for businesses to make it easier to help clients identify the right email archiving product for their specific environment.
-Company B offers a low cost email archiving solution to help meet eDiscovery requirements.
-Company C provides a free email retention policy starter kit.
-Company D releases an enhanced product with better email security.
-Company E publicly announces the acquisition of a major player in the email archiving community.
-Company F drafts a press release citing market analysts that they provide the best eDiscovery capabilities for an email archiving solution.
-Company G introduces its email archiving solution to the European market.
-Company H releases a new version of its email archiving solution that supports all the major servers on the market (exchange, GroupWise, domino).
-Company I distributes its email archiving solution in Malaysia.
Let’s break this down.
Company A releases a free email archiving score card to help other businesses choose an email compliance solution. What is company A trying to accomplish? They are trying to simplify the process of email compliance through education. Some of this ties into the concept of “professional respect,” which I will discuss in more detail later on in this entry.
Company B offers a low cost email archiving solution to help meet eDiscovery requirements. What is company B trying to accomplish? They are using cost as a measure to gain market share.
Company C provides a free email retention policy starter kit. What is company C trying to accomplish? They are reaching out to businesses that are undecided on integrating an email archiving solution. Company C (much like company A) is trying to simplify the process of email compliance through education.
Company D releases an enhanced version of their product which strengthens email security and enhances policy management capabilities. What is company D trying to accomplish? They are using upgrades in technology as a measure to gain market share.
Company E publicly announces the acquisition of a major player in the email archiving community. What is company E trying to accomplish? They will likely enhance the operational capabilities of their acquisition.
Company F drafts a press release citing market analysts that they provide the best eDiscovery capabilities for an email archiving solution. What is company F trying to accomplish? They are trying to use market research as a PR tool.
Company G introduces its email archiving solution to the European market. What is company G trying to accomplish? They are using geographic location as a measure to gain market share.
Company H releases a new version of its email archiving solution that supports all the major servers on the market (exchange, GroupWise, domino). What is company H trying to accomplish? Much like company D, they are using technological advances as a measure to gain market share.
Company I distributes its email archiving solution in Malaysia. What is company I trying to accomplish? Much like company G, they are also using geographic location as a measure to gain market share.
Now, what is the big picture here? Education. Cost. Simplicity. Technology. Expansion. Market research. Geography. These 7 factors are what email archiving providers have been pushing in the last month.Some of these press releases focus on similar things, but you will have to stay tuned for part II to see how it all fits together in an analysis of current market trends. Stay tuned.
Companies begin reflection on FRCP eDiscovery and email archiving experiences
February 28, 2008 at 10:21 pm (archive email, business, e-discovery, e-discovery amendments, edd, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic data discovery, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email litigation, email retention, email storage, foxhollow technologies, frcp, governance, legal, message archiving, news, politics, thoughts)
Paul Korzeniowski of Byte and Switch reports that at least a few small to mid-sized businesses are ready to reflect on eDiscovery and the steps they have taken to successfully comply. Writing about the current state of eDiscovery preparation in American industries, Korzeniowski says: “while many firms, particularly SMB’s, continue to struggle with the FRCP mandate, the ones who’ve managed to institute policies and procedures for the speedy and accurate retrieval of electronic information have a lot to say about what works — and what doesn’t.” Korzeniowski included a section about how medical device supplier Foxhollow Technologies Inc. was forced to integrate an email archiving solution when they became involved in a federal law suit. I am posting an excerpt of this section below because I think it is an important learning opportunity for all U.S. Businesses that are on the fringe of turning to email archiving.
“When IT pros at Foxhollow Technologies Inc., a startup medical device supplier, looked to install email archiving three years ago, management forced the project to the back burner, despite a general lack of email control. “There were users who saved everything and had gigabytes – or more – of email messages,” noted Chuck Arconi, system administrator at the company. At the time, Foxhollow had about 600 employees, but its email system chewed up 400 Gbytes of storage.
Then the other shoe dropped when the company became involved in a law suit. Suddenly, funding for the email archiving project was no longer a contentious issue. ‘The legal department had no problem finding the capital needed to pay for the entire project. In fact, they gave us more than twice as much money as we needed. Before, a paralegal would have to spend two to four hours trying to find the right messages in each mail box. Now the work is done with a click of a button.”
Last month I wrote a blog entry on email insurance and I mentioned the concept of “professional disinterest.” I provided the quote of “when it happens to me, I’ll deal with it.” Foxhollow Technologies illustrates this point loud and clear, as many U.S. Companies are perfectly content waiting for something bad to happen to them before making something important a top priority. Why do they do this? I think it just really takes a wake up call to force people to make decisions most of the time. I think individual case studies are one of the best ways to get people to pay attention and I will try and provide many more of them. Stay tuned.
Next generation email archiving? [part 1]
February 26, 2008 at 4:12 pm (archive email, business, corporate, data retention, disaster recovery, e-discovery, e-discovery amendments, edd, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic data discovery, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email compliance, email litigation, email management, email retention, email storage, exchange 2007, frcp, governance, legal, message recovery, news, politics, thoughts)
I came across an interesting article earlier today on Computer Technology Review regarding the current & future expectations of an email archiving solution in light of modern FRCP eDiscovery requirements. William Tolson has compiled an expert list of capabilities to be considered when choosing an email archiving solution that I feel all U.S. Businesses should review. I am posting an excerpt of his writing below along with the capabilities he feels are pertinent in meeting the demands of regulatory and legal compliance:
“Email archiving solutions should address critical customer requirements around email information archiving, eDiscovery, regulatory compliance, business continuity, and storage optimization. Enterprise-class solutions provide legal search work flow, immediate mailbox and message recovery, disaster recovery, email archiving, and self-service search and access in one solution. By leveraging cost-effective storage, these solutions also optimize email storage and reduce overall infrastructure costs. Next generation email archiving solutions deliver rapid, comprehensive search across millions of emails for litigation ready production and provide the following capabilities:
Rapid eDiscovery: Auditors and legal staff must be able to quickly perform sophisticated search and discovery across centrally managed mailboxes to meet compliance requirements.
Automated, Exchange Disaster Recovery: Reliably protect Exchange information through non-invasive, continuous application shadowing. This process preserves the consistency and integrity of Exchange data and enables “one-click” full email data and service recovery when needed.
Mailbox Storage Management: Reduce storage requirements on the Exchange Server by migrating or “extending” attachments based on policies of age, document size, or mailbox size.
Self-service search of archived data: Seamless self-service access to end-user archived data, enabling them to find potentially lost or deleted messages without IT assistance.
Enhanced support for Exchange 2007: Live Communication Server (IM) and 64 bit Servers – extends content management to include instant messaging and takes advantage of new Exchange 2007 features for disaster recovery, folder level retention, and mailbox level journaling.
Automated PST File Archiving: New “crawler” automatically searches and retrieves PST files from servers, desktops, and laptops based on administrator-defined policies.
Active Directory Integration: Leverages roles defined in Active Directory and provides a version history of Active Directory, including distribution lists. Contents of distribution lists are viewed as they appeared when an email was originally sent or received.
Public Folder Archiving: Performs archiving and continuous data protection for Public Folders and allows auditors to search all Public Folder content and re-create chain-of-custody for compliance and legal discovery.
Scalable Storage & Reduced Archive Storage Requirements: Designed to deliver improved scalability and performance for the archive server with support for multiple databases and extensible storage volumes.
Each of the above criteria is highly relevant in ensuring a smooth email litigation process should such a situation arise. However, does relevancy equal necessity? Which of these factors are truly “business critical”? How essential is having support for Exchange 2007? Does a company need public folder archiving? When does storage really become a problem? Are the above capabilities best used in an in-house or an outsourced email archiving solution? I believe it is important for a business to understand what they need to comply with corporate regulations and legal requirements without spending money and time on things that are simply not necessary. What are the intricate parts of an email archiver that you truly NEED to satisfy compliance? I would like to address this topic in full soon. Stay tuned.
Electronic discovery case research? Look no further [part 2]
February 22, 2008 at 6:34 pm (archive email, business, data retention, database, e-discovery, e-discovery amendments, edd, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic data discovery, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, frcp, legal, message archiving, news, politics, safe harbor rule, thoughts)
“You can now select the attribute FRCP 37(e) Safe Harbor, “cick” Search,” and view a list of cases that have cited or discussed the new “Safe Harbor” rule. Other new attributes that we have added include:
-FRCP 26(b)(2)(B) “Not Reasonably Accessible”
-FRCP 34(b) Procedure or Format
-FRCP 26(b)(2)(C) Limitations
-FRCP 26(b)(5)(B) or Proposed FRE 502
-Early Conference or Discovery Plan
-Local Court Rule, Form or Guideline
-Motion for Preservation Order
What’s more, the database now contains over 900 e-discovery cases from state and federal jurisdictions, with new cases being added very week. Now more than ever, our database is an excellent source of information on developing e-discovery case law around the country.”
This database is an excellent resource for those organizations that are in the early phases of integrating an email archiving solution. With over 900 e-discovery cases from state and federal jurisdictions, there is substantial access to learn how courts view email compliance with FRCP eDiscovery proceedings.
Cayman Islands to host seminar on email archiving and disaster recovery
February 21, 2008 at 5:04 pm (archive email, business, cayman islands, corporate, data retention, disaster recovery, e-discovery, edd, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic data discovery, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email backup, email compliance, legal, message archiving, news, politics, seminar, thoughts, white paper)
Caymanian Compass, the Cayman Islands’ leading newspaper, reports that a seminar on email archival and disaster recovery will take place on February 21st at the UCCI (University College Cayman Islands) Executive Training Center. According to Rob Eyers, responsible for enterprise business development at Kirk iSS, “Public and private sector organizations in the Cayman Islands are facing similar challenges to their counterparts in other offshore jurisdictions.” He then adds: “the increased use of technologies such as email, sms, instant messaging, Microsoft Office and a range of other types of electronic communications have resulted in substantial growth in data within the enterprise and in turn created a significant data management problem for the IT Department. With 83% of business communication now being electronic, organizations need a solution to reduce the cost of storing, managing, and discovering this electronic tidal wave of business information.”
There are a couple of points I would like to make here. Firstly, there has been a recent surge in the amount of educational resources regarding eDiscovery and email archiving. Within the past month alone I have written about professional research papers, legal guidelines, reports, conferences, and even a judicially acclaimed reference on the topic. What is the significance here? I believe that both industry leaders and experts are finally recognizing the sheer volume of companies that are simply unprepared to deal with the pressures of satisfying an ever strengthening corporate & legal governance. Education and integration of email archiving solutions will continue to be a process, but there is little doubt that progress is being made. Secondly, the geography of email archiving and the locations that might be subject to email compliance regulations in the near future will be interesting to keep an eye on. That this seminar is taking place on the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is a sign of society and corporate governance moving in a specific direction.
NY LegalTech panel takes a look at in-house and outsourced electronic data discovery
February 11, 2008 at 9:46 pm (archive email, business, data retention, e-discovery, edd, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic data discovery, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email backup, email compliance, email management, email retention, email security, frcp, legal, message archiving, news, politics, thoughts)
Legal Blog Watch reports that on February 5th Claire Duffet of Law Technology News attended a morning session of the NY LegalTech panel entitled: “Actionable E-discovery: Finding the Right Balance of In-house and Outsourced Resources.” According to Duffet there were 300 attendees in the room who had to answer the poll question: which step in the eDiscovery process is most concerning? 43% said that this step is in the processing review and analysis, 33% said that its in preservation and collection, and 13% said information management with identification, production, and presentation rounding out the rest of the responses.
Duffet mentioned the presence of several significant eDiscovery figures including: attorney Marie Lona, partner and chair of the e-discovery and electronic information practice group at Winston and Strawn, Tom Hall, managing attorney for discovery and litigation technology at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Mikki Tomlinson, litigation support manager for Chesapeake Energy Corp, and moderator Kelli Brooks, principal of forensic technology services at KPMG. Tom Hall discussed the serious sanction handed down in the Qualcomm Inc v. Broadcom Corp by saying “My risk aversion advice: Don’t do that.”
EDD (electronic data discovery), as evident by the 46,000 missing electronic documents in Qualcomm, is an extremely important business continuity measure in the year 2008. Panel discussions such as the one above are instrumental in the education process for U.S. Businesses to learn about the dangers of avoiding email compliance and email archiving solutions. Perhaps the question is: is it better to retain electronic correspondences using in-house or outsourced solutions? This depends largely on the finances of a company, but there is a strong argument to be made for an outsourced service. They are generally more cost efficient, provide IT relief, and automatically provide you with regulatory and legal compliance.
New white paper by Osterman Research sheds light on email archiving
February 11, 2008 at 6:30 pm (archive email, business, data retention, e-discovery, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email backup, email compliance, email management, email retention, email security, Financial institution, FINRA, frcp, gramm-leach-bliley, health care, healthcare, HIPAA, hipaa compliance, message archiving, news, Osterman Research, politics, sarbanes-oxley, thoughts, white paper)
The Portland Daily Business News reports that Osterman Research has published a new white paper entitled: “A Guide to Messaging Archiving.” According to the press release, Osterman Research “indicates that support for regulatory and legal compliance obligations and growing storage requirements are among the reasons for companies to deploy a messaging-archiving solution, and that any one of those rationale can often justify the entire cost of the archiving capability.” Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, said that “having a messaging-archiving system in place is becoming increasingly critical in today’s business environment. We’re seeing an increasing number of examples of companies paying a massive price for a failure to produce electronic documents and e-mails.
The study includes the following factors as significant reasons to implement an email archiving solution:
Regulatory compliance. Industries that are heavily regulated, such as financial services or health care companies, must meet a variety of statutory requirements with regard to records retention.
Legal compliance. Dec 2006 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) require organizations to manage their data in such away that it can be produced in a timely and complete manner when necessary, such as during legal discovery proceedings.
Reducing the impact of storage. Roughly 60% of decision-makers cite growth in messaging storage as a serious or very serious problem. Messaging storage, driven by increasing use of e-mail, larger attachments and the like, is growing at an average of 35% annually. By migrating data from storage on messaging servers to archival storage, companies overall storage costs can be reduced, while improving their messaging server performance and expediting recovery from downtime incidents.
My thoughts: at this point there is certainly no shortage of reasons to archive email. This white paper only highlights the list of issues facing both enterprises and businesses in relation to integrating an email compliance solution. With HIPAA, SOX, GLB, NYSE, NASD, AND SEC laws firmly in place, the monitoring and enforcement of corporate email retention is a top priority for U.S. industry regulators. FRCP eDiscovery proceedings have only placed the necessity to archive email on a grander scale, as harsh sanctions and criminal prosecution are legitimate possibilities facing those companies who cannot produce email evidence in a timely fashion. Additionally, the strain placed on an in-house server to retain the thousands upon thousands of in-coming and out-going emails that are accumulated daily has also enhanced the attraction of outsourcing an email archiving service.
HOWEVER, is this really what will get the corporate world to archive their email? I think that Osterman Research has done a great job, but I think that the benefits to email archiving are out there and have been out there. With so many laws, requirements, and IT concerns already established will a new white paper citing what is already known really make a difference? For some it might, but for many it wont. In a recent series of posts about Email Insurance I said that cost, complexity, satisfaction with email backups, apprehension about an unfamiliar corporate practice, and professional disinterest were big reasons why email archiving has not risen to the top of the business agenda. What the U.S. business world needs is the following three factors to help push email archiving into the corporate spotlight: Education. Momentum. Trust. I want to elaborate much more on these three factors in subsequent blog entries but for now I am going to focus on education.
“A Guide to Messaging Archiving” sounds like a nice tool for a CEO or CIO willing to invest the time to learn about email archiving, but will they? Who reads white papers? White papers are academic endeavors designed to provide a degree of expertise in a given topic. Most business professionals are simply too busy to be bothered with reading a white paper no matter how beneficial it might be for their business operation. This seems a strange scenario. People are taking the time to draft comprehensive analyses of important topics and nobody is reading them? I wouldn’t say nobody here, but unless someone is seriously considering a purchase it is not a common phenomenon. How can education about corporate email archiving become more appealing? How do you make people WANT to get what they SHOULD get in the first place? I believe this is where attorneys come in. I believe this is where the news comes in. I believe this is where word of mouth comes in. Sometimes it depends on WHO is doing the educating. Might a white paper be more informative then listening to an attorney speak? Sure. Might it not? Sure. That is up to the individual person doing the listening. But what I do know is that hearing what you need to do from someone that you perceive to be in the right position to make a judgment call will win over reading a white paper almost every time. Our society is governed by law. People trust the law. U.S. Businesses trust the legal practitioners that represent the law. If email archiving is to be taken seriously it must come at least partially come from attorneys.
Is there something wrong with a new white paper on email archiving by Osterman Research? There is nothing WRONG in the traditional sense, but I feel that corporate America is just waiting a different form of education, one that they feel more comfortable with. When is this change coming? Is this change coming? I would like to do some more writing on these issues soon. Stay tuned.
Ohio law firm offers guidelines to deal with email compliance and electronic document retention
February 5, 2008 at 6:04 pm (archive email, business, data retention, e-discovery, eDiscovery, electronic communication, electronic discovery, electronic document retention, Email Archiving, email compliance, email management, email retention, email security, frcp, legal, message archiving, news, ohio, politics, thoughts)
According to PRNewswire an Ohio law firm, Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell (HHM), has released a set of general guidelines designed to help companies address the “growing concern over legal challenges related to electronic document retention.” HHM has posted excerpts of the guidelines on its website, with the complete and unabridged information provided to the law firm’s clients in a “comprehensive and proprietary document” just recently.
John L. Pogue, chairman of HHM’s business services practices group, issued the following statement for the press release: “Improper management of electronically stored information creates a huge risk. Some companies that have found themselves uninformed or unprepared in this area have sustained themselves massive judgments. In today’s business climate it is important for companies to build well- defined policies that address how email and electronic documents are used and managed, and to communicate and enforce those policies.”
I wholeheartedly agree. There is no question about the importance of integrating an email compliance and document retention solution. However, what I find truly significant here is that the warning to properly manage electronic information has come from a legal entity and NOT from an industry analyst. In a recent post entitled: “New eDiscovery reference promotes necessity of email archiving,” I said that “while it is unlikely for business executives to run to the ABA and order a copy of their own, there is a great chance that corporate lawyers will purchase the book and relay the information back to their clients.” The bottom line is that attorneys NEED to assist in the corporate education process with regards to email compliance and electronic data retention. Learning about the dangers of email retention from anonymous editors and obscure marketing professionals just doesn’t appear to have the same effect as hearing it from a respected legal practitioner.
I am posting the excerpted guidelines from the HHM website just below because I think it is essential for every organization to review:
“Note: This information was excerpted from Drafting and Implementing Document Retention and Litigation Hold Policies, a comprehensive and proprietary document HHM developed for clients in response to growing concerns about the issue.
1. Every company is different. Not all companies rely equally on technology in their communications. Also, some companies allow employees to take digital information home, while in others that is not practical. Because tools and practices vary so widely, there is no one-size-fits all rule.
2. Consider laws already on the books. Certain businesses are subject to federal and state regulation of records retention, so it is important to investigate whether any of these apply. This applies to both electronic and paper records.
3. Consider the breadth of electronic communications your company uses. A sound electronic communications policy establishes permissible and prohibited uses, notifies employees that the company is monitoring electronic communications and sets up security procedures, etiquette, and records retention guidelines. As part of this process, a business needs to consider the types of electronic information that it uses: email, word-processing documents, spreadsheets, databases, digital images, scanned documents, and digital sound and video recordings. Federal courts refer to this as “electronically stored information” or ESI. Email raises its own technical questions that are important in drafting an effective policy.
4. Determine the possible locations where this information may be located. This may require a thorough inventory, because information could be stored on computers and devices not even owned by the company. For example, a flash drive can hold thousands of files, and an employee may use such a device to take information home to finish a project. If that employee opens a document on his or her home computer, that computer is now a repository of information that may be relevant in future litigation. Policies need top address these situations.
5. Establish a “litigation hold” policy that outlines a response to potential litigation. This policy, which should be created with input from the company’s legal and information technology advisors, suspends the application of the document retention/destruction policies for relevant documents. Then the business needs to implement and enforce this policy. It is at this stage that companies like Morgan Stanley have run afoul of the judicial system and paid the price.”
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Global forensic & eDiscovery expert raises questions surrounding email compliance
February 1, 2008 at 8:49 pm (archive email, business, data retention, e-discovery, eDiscovery, electronic discovery, Email Archiving, email compliance, email management, email retention, frcp, legal, message archiving, news, thoughts)
In a new report entitled “Email and Litigation,” eDiscovery expert Stephen Mason challenges the traditional view of who should take the responsibility for the successful integration of an organizations email archiving system. Mason, who performs digital evidence research at the prestigious British Institute of International and Comparative Law, says that the task of email compliance should NOT be pinned on a company’s IT department. According to Mason: “IT departments are at best only the custodians of the records.” Who then does Mason say should bear the burden of email compliance? He claims it should be left in the hands of the “corporate secretary, typically one of the highest officers within an organization.”
Mason cites many of the legal consequences related to poor email archiving and compliance policies as being tightly bound to this prominent role. Mason writes: “the evidence that comes before a court during legal proceedings reflects the way a business operates. Given that virtually every business now uses digital documents and email correspondences in such vast quantities, it is crucial that the documents relied upon by the business are retained properly.” This statement addresses the common corporate practice of changing the “subject field of an email to reflect the client or project to which it is related,” something which could cause significant problems if it was later required for court submission.
I believe Stephen Mason has made some excellent points here, as he provides some fresh commentary on how an organization should be preparing for eDiscovery proceedings. Mason makes a notable distinction between the policies handed down in an organization regarding electronic information management and the actual maintenance or “custodians” who are assigned to do the monitoring. If an organization recieves a sanction during pre-litigation FRCP eDiscovery, who is to blame? Do you blame the IT department? Or do you blame the corporate secretary in charge of drafting the policies? How many organizations even have a corporate secretary? If there is no such role in an organization, should the responsibility then fall onto the IT department solely? I believe one of the most important things to take out of this report is that the infrastructure of a business is more vital to the task of ensuring email compliance then it is typically given credit for. There must be a convergence between the IT department and a QUALIFIED individual who understands what the court expects out of an email archiving system to comply with eDiscovery regulations.
E-discovery conference in NYC to address application of new technologies and conceptual searches
January 31, 2008 at 5:50 pm (business, data retention, e-discovery, eDiscovery, electronic discovery, email compliance, email management, email retention, frcp, legal, news, thoughts)
I just read a PRNewswire press release on a website called Earth Times saying that an “expert panel of electronic data discovery thought leaders” will convene at 1:30 pm on February 6th at the Hilton New York Hotel to take part in a discussion entitled: “The End of E-Discovery As We Know It: Applying New Technologies and Conceptual Search to EDD.” Academics listed to lead the discussion include: Jay Brudz, Senior Counsel of Legal Technology at GE; Mark Sidoti, Chair of the Gibbons PC Electronic Discovery Task Force; John Sweeney, President of Thomson Litigation Consulting; and Nicholas Croce, President of Inference Data. This impressive collection of professionals will discuss how “new data collection and conceptual search technologies are transforming the electronic discovery process and how they are being applied in real-world, large-scale litigation.”
With 37 United States District Courts now requiring compliance with special eDiscovery rules, as well as consistent modifications to corporate data retention technology, the eDiscovery movement is beginning to surge. Since email management remains one of the dominant staples of current eDiscovery issues, if you are a CEO or a CIO this conference provides a great opportunity to integrate the solutions you need to maintain email compliance.
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