Do Email Archiving Worries Keep You Up at Night?

Hello, and welcome to another Pro VIP Perspective. I'll tell you what's on my mind, and I hope after you've read this, you'll tell me what's on yours. Here’s what concerns me: White House scandals over email retrieval—or, rather, the inability to do so. Email discovery violations in the patent infringement suit between Qualcomm and Broadcom. Continued discussion about the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that went into effect over a year ago. In short, what's going on with email archiving?

In the last few months, I've spoken to quite a few vendors that supply email archiving solutions for Exchange Server. One question I always ask them is whether they think companies are doing enough overall to meet compliance regulations for email retention. The response has been that companies in the financial sector and any highly litigious field are probably using effective archiving methods, but outside that area only companies that have faced serious legal challenges—and therefore have seen firsthand the costs of failure—are likely to have implemented comprehensive solutions. Any way you look at it, corporate and governmental regulations are driving the need for email archiving. . . .