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.
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.
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