Publication Date: September 29, 2010 With thanks to our co-sponsors: Description A retention policy for electronic information defines how long the information should be stored until it’s deleted. Except for email, most electronic information is currently never deleted or is deleted in a haphazard manner. Legal and regulatory pressure is gradually driving organizations to define... read more »
This report looks at the current state of email retention policies. It incorporates data from a survey of 22 organizations representing more than 443,000 mailboxes running Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, GroupWise, and other email platforms. It also presents Ferris Research’s interpretation of the findings.... read more »
In April, Microsoft announced that Exchange 2010 will have built-in support for archiving. But it’s not clear to many what capabilities Microsoft will provide. This Ferris Research white paper sheds light on the new offering. Topics include what the product’s archiving features do, what they don’t do, and what the ongoing role of third-party archiving vendors will be.... read more »
On January 5, 2009, CA announced its intention to acquire Orchestria. This webcast discusses key aspects of the acquisition.... read more »
On January 5, 2009, CA (formerly Computer Associates) announced its intention to acquire Orchestria. This report assesses the transaction.... read more »
Just about anybody with an email address knows about spam and spam filters–or at least they think they do. However, it is a complex subject, with far more to it than meets the eye. This Ferris Research white paper looks at spam: what it is, how it is sent, and how it is filtered. It unravels the complexities and gives an accessible, factual overview into the scourge of spam.... read more »
Email archiving can be implemented by subscribing to a hosted service, commonly called “software as a service” (SaaS), or by licensing software and installing it in-house. Which approach is better? Sometimes the choice is clear; more often it is not, and a potential customer must balance trade-offs. ... read more »
This Ferris Research white paper explains the main differences between the two approaches so IT executives can decide which is best for their organizations. It also contains an interview with Mimecast, a SaaS provider, on the advantages of SaaS and how it is evolving.... read more »
This report looks at the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Microsoft-based UC. As the report shows, the TCO of Microsoft UC and telephony benefits from economies of scale. It is much easier for a large organization to justify the technology than a smaller organization. A spreadsheet to help you model your organization’s TCO is also provided.... read more »
On October 8, 2008, Symantec announced its intention to acquire MessageLabs. This is our assessment of the transaction.... read more »
On June 24, 2008, Proofpoint announced that it bought Fortiva. This report looks at the purchase and its implications.... read more »
On August 12, 2008, Return Path announced that it will buy Habeas. This report looks at the purchase and its implications. ... read more »
On July 31, 2008, Synchronica announced that it had secured an additional round of £5.1 million of funding. This report looks at the transaction and its implications. ... read more »
On August 18, 2008, mobile email vendor Synchronica announced that it will buy mobile email vendor AxisMobile. This report looks at the purchase and its implications. ... read more »
On July 31, 2008, McAfee announced that it will buy Reconnex. The deal closed on August 14, 2008. This report looks at the purchase and its implications. It is designed to help CEOs and business development staff understand how to optimize stock price, successful vs. failed sales strategies, and rationales for funding-raising and sales. ... read more »
This report describes the results of a survey of 136 organizations, totaling about 1.5 million mailboxes, to determine the extent that organizations have deployed their email vendor’s instant messaging (IM) services. We discuss the penetration of the vendors’ IM services for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, and Novell GroupWise, and further break down the data based on organization size. The data is valuable for organizations that want to compare the size and cost of their email support staffs with those of comparably sized organizations, as well as for vendors seeking to assess the penetration of internally supported IM technology.... read more »
This report looks at Ensim Unify, a system management framework that offers a layer of insulation, protecting the management of mission-critical infrastructure applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory (AD), and mobility gateways such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and Windows Mobile. The key idea behind Unify is to automate the day-to-day administration of these applications by wrapping their administrator interfaces so it can bundle sets of commands into single, task-focused operations.... read more »
This report describes the results of a survey of 136 organizations, totaling about 1.5 million mailboxes, to determine the size and cost of their email support staffs. We discuss the annual cost per mailbox of providing technical support for Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes/Domino, and Novell GroupWise, and further break down the data based on organization size. The data is valuable for organizations that want to compare the size and cost of their email support staffs with those of comparably sized organizations.... read more »
Kazeon’s Information Access Platform discovers, classifies, and indexes most of an organization’s electronically stored information (ESI) and then makes it easy to search for relevant information sets and apply control policies. This report describes Kazeon’s offering and details its industry context.... read more »
A growing proportion of lawsuits require the production of copies of electronically stored information. IT staff must now provide timely assistance in producing the data. This new responsibility is typically extremely disruptive to IT staff, and also very expensive. This report reviews the state of current U.S. federal laws relating to electronic discovery, explains the problems that have arisen, and summarizes current thinking on relevant best practices. We focus on the perspective of IT staff and the actions they should undertake. ... read more »
This report describes the results of a survey of 917 organizations of all sizes to determine the email systems they are using, the versions deployed, migration plans, and the cost of the software. Responding organizations account for 10.6 million employees, or roughly 2% of the workforce in developed industrialized economies.... read more »
This report discusses classifications and why they are important. Automated methods of assigning classifications must be used, complemented by limited use of manual assignment. The report explains how the different approaches work and their shortcomings. Finally, it explains the main challenges faced by user organizations and vendors serving user organizations.... read more »
In this report, we describe the main issues of concern to email support staff implementing Exchange Server 2007. The report incorporates data from a survey of 43 organizations that are migrating to Exchange 2007. We describe their deployment plans and the different ways they are configuring their new systems.... read more »
Virus and other email-borne threats have become more prevalent and more dangerous than ever before. This report outlines current methods used by authors of these threats and discusses techniques to control them.... read more »
In this brief, we describe Socialtext’s wiki designed for business use and discuss its industry context.... read more »
erris Research partnered with Computerworld to conduct a Web-based survey about the messaging concerns and priorities of CIOs and other high-level (VP and above) corporate managers. Managers were asked to rank their levels of concern about 26 issues, ranging from TCO improvements and telephony integration, to encrypted email and instant messaging connectivity.... read more »
This Ferris Research report explains current spammer tactics, describes new techniques in anti-spam technologies, and discusses customers’ key requirements when purchasing an anti-spam product.... read more »
Email sender authentication is a way of detecting email forgeries. It is useful in protecting senders from email identity theft and protecting recipients against spam and phishing. This Ferris Research report describes the two leading methods of email sender authentication: Sender Policy Framework/Sender ID Framework (SPF/SDIF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). ... read more »
This report examines the key drivers behind business adoption of email encryption and provides an overview of four leading email encryption products.... read more »
This report presents the findings of a study comparing the cost of Notes/Domino 7 and Microsoft Exchange 2003. The cost of support staff constitutes 30% to 80% of the cost of an email service, so we asked 78 users of the two products to describe the nature and size of their support staff. ... read more »
Four issues that present the greatest challenges to messaging managers are protecting the network against sophisticated malware attacks, provisioning employees with mobile email, organizing email and other content for better team collaboration, and rapidly and effectively responding to legal and audit discovery requests. This report looks at four interesting new products and services, each aimed at solving one of these problems.... read more »
This Ferris report focuses on compliance with those regulations, particularly Sarbanes-Oxley, that impact IT managers. It provides an overview of the key regulations governing electronic messaging and suggests best practices for achieving compliance.... read more »
A host of issues will demand the attention of messaging managers in 2007 and beyond, from archiving to voice integration. This Ferris Research report describes the key issues and technologies that will concern email managers over the next five years. Topics include Exchange and Notes upgrades, malware control, email archiving, best practices for regulatory compliance, mobile messaging, voice integration, and team workplaces.... read more »
Before buying and installing archival software, you need to understand the specific requirements for the system and the challenges you face when planning and implementing it.... read more »
This report looks at new developments in presence and real-time information interchange systems, services, and standards, and identifies the issues that require resolution.... read more »
This white paper presents a brief overview of PKI technology and focuses on the differentiating features of Identum’s Private Post offering.... read more »