Top 10 Predictions for Email Archiving in 2011

LiveOffice LLC, provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) email archiving, email compliance and email continuity solutions, announced its top 10 predictions for email archiving in 2011. The list, which was compiled from conversations with industry analysts, LiveOffice clients and a review of current research, points to several emerging trends – some focused on end-user needs and others related to the growing importance of cloud-based email platforms.

"Over the past few years, email archiving has gone beyond solely meeting compliance and legal discovery requirements and transformed itself into a tool that can provide enterprises with a variety of other benefits, including more effective mailbox management, enhanced end-user productivity and fully integrated data loss protection," said Brian Babineau, senior consulting analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "As IT departments are asked to do more with less, archiving solutions are proving to be an essential part of the overall equation for maximizing resources and offloading some of the messaging management burden."

LiveOffice’s top predictions
for email archiving in 2011 include:

1. Demand from end users to access their email archives as Unlimited Mailboxes: Email archiving is quickly becoming a valuable tool for enhancing end user productivity. With users spending an average of 15’30 minutes a day managing their inboxes (in an effort to stay within tightly regulated mailbox quotas), precious time is being wasted that could be re-focused on revenue-enhancing activities. Many of these users are asking for direct access to their archived messages, without IT intervention. Therefore, archiving solutions that empower end users to restore lost emails themselves – even things they may have deleted from their desktop, laptop, BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device are in high demand -. This trend makes archiving vendors that are able to provide unlimited storage and retention for a flat, monthly price per user an attractive option for IT departments operating on tight budgets.
2. Stub-free approaches to mailbox management: Historically, stubbing – an archiving feature that strips an email of its attachments, replaces it with a stub file or link within the message and then stores the actual attachment in an archive – has been a popular way to manage email storage. However, over time, this practice has created bigger challenges for organizations, including slower Microsoft Exchange Server performance, increased administrative overhead, added management complexity and limited migration options. In the coming year, many expect to see increased adoption of stub-free approaches to mailbox management – called Mailbox Management 2.0 – to help companies overcome these shortcomings.
3. Merging of email archiving and continuity: Today, most organizations have no tolerance for email downtime – whether planned or unplanned. With increased demand for always-on email, many companies are looking for a combined archiving and continuity solution. In 2011, an increasing number of organizations will look to deploy archiving technology that also provides continuity capabilities, so users can continue to send and receive messages when their primary mail servers are down.
4. Growth of cloud-based email platforms: The growth of cloud-based email platforms, like Office 365 (formerly BPOS) and Google’s Gmail, is undeniable. However, this trend has serious implications for archiving vendors, since not all of them can integrate with both on-premise and cloud-based platforms. In the coming year, many organizations will reevaluate their archiving strategy to ensure it aligns with the current and future plans for their messaging environment as a whole.
5. Continued migration to cloud-based archiving solutions: According to some analyst estimates, the market for cloud-based archiving solutions is expected to deliver more than 50 percent of the total archiving market revenue in just a few years. Factoring in the growing trends of unlimited storage needs, stub-free storage management, continuity requirements and compatibility with cloud-based email platforms, LiveOffice anticipates that adoption of cloud-based archiving solutions will continue to outpace demand for on-premise offerings.
6. Anytime, anywhere archive access: Current industry research indicates that mobility is a top priority for many organizations. For example, the Nielsen Company recently reported that 28 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones. In addition, ESG reports that nearly a third of companies surveyed indicated that 30 percent of their employees use Outlook Web Access as the primary means for accessing email. As a result, LiveOffice predicts that mobility will also become an important part of the archiving vendor selection process for many companies who want their users to have archive access from their desktop, laptop and mobile device. This trend will also lead more companies to evaluate cloud-based archiving solutions since on-premise archiving software deployments do not permit mobile access for end users.
7. Enhanced legal discovery workflows: Roughly three out of four discovery orders today require email to be produced as part of the discovery process, which means that archiving solutions with fully integrated legal discovery workflows continue to be in high demand. In keeping with this trend, 2011 will see more companies turning to their email archive to help them increase their agility in responding to pending litigation (or even just HR investigations) by enabling them to delegate reviewer-only access, create and manage matters, apply granular and dynamic legal holds, cull data and export search results for early case assessment—saving time and money.
8. Increased scrutiny on security: For companies evaluating cloud-based archiving solutions, the security of proprietary data stored outside their network is a significant concern. In 2011, these organizations will place an even greater emphasis on verifying that their cloud archiving vendor can validate system security in three core areas: Physical Security (security of the vendor’s buildings and collocation facilities), Technical Security (security of the archiving systems, networks and applications) and Administrative Security (the security processes and protocols across all levels of the vendor’s organization).
9. Enhanced focus on social media archiving requirements: The rise of social media usage (via sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook) within the enterprise means that an increasing number of organizations are evaluating how they will preserve business-related social media interactions among employees. In the new year, LiveOffice predicts that companies will focus more closely on implementing social media usage policies and automating enforcement by deploying a cloud-based social media archiving solution.
10. More demand for third party archiving solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010: With adoption of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on the rise, many companies are interested in taking advantage of its built-in archiving capabilities. While these features will meet basic archiving needs, organizations with more advanced legal discovery, regulatory compliance and/or storage management needs will still deploy third-party archiving solutions. As a result, in 2011, organizations will look for third-party solutions that can seamlessly integrate with their existing Exchange Server (2003, 2007), while also facilitating a ‘cleaner’migration to Exchange Server 2010 when the time comes.