January 4, 2005, San Francisco, Calif. - Phishing, compliance, VoIP, and spam will be major themes for the messaging industry in 2005, according to predictions offered today by Ferris Research, a San Francisco-based consultancy specializing in messaging and collaboration technology.
The predictions, described more fully in a report, Key Messaging and Collaboration Trends, 2005, were gathered by Ferris Research's analysts from its enterprise user panel, and are:
- By the end of 2005 90% of all mailboxes that are experiencing a spam problem with be protected by an commercial anti-spam solution. Organizations will, in many cases, deploy second generation solutions to products that they feel aren't effective enough.
- Phishing and spyware will be demonstrated as a problem not limited to consumer mailboxes in the coming year. Phishing attacks will attempt to steal organizational credentials and spyware will increasingly be viewed as a corporate threat.
- Regulatory compliance will be top-of-mind for many messaging managers. As legal judgments and court decisions are handed down in 2005, it will become much easier for organizations to determine what they must do to be in compliance than it is presently.
- The new regulatory climate will drive an increasing interest in messaging archiving. As archiving becomes a higher priority, investment in archiving companies will increase, though further vendor consolidation in the sector is virtually certain.
- Organizations will continue to resist major upgrades or platform migrations. Weak business justification and the massive effort sometimes involved suggests that only those running the most outdated systems, or involved in mergers will find good reasons for major changes.
- Wireless access to email, IM, calendar and tasks - once reserved for the techno-elite - will become much more mainstream in the coming year. Better devices, better network coverage, and better economics will all play a part.
- Tools to help address email information overload such as searching, filtering and automated categorization will receive strong interest in 2005. The need to monitor compliance monitoring will provide one significant justification, but the really payoff will be in dramatically improved access to information.
- Secure messaging. In 2005 workable solutions to inter-enterprise message encryption should finally emerge. While it's not yet clear what organizations are willing to pay for this capability, the increased awareness, regulatory requirements, and need for security in general suggests that products and services in this category will at last be viable.
- Use of Voice over IP (VoIP) services from conventional phones, between PCs, and between PCs and conventional phones, will continue to expand and prices will fall. Existing telcos will offer flat rate VoIP services as add-ons to their DSL broadband offerings, cable providers will offer flat rate VoIP services as one of a set of bundled (television+broadband+voice) offerings, and Instant Messaging vendors will work harder to integrate voice services.
- Calendaring. Interoperability between electronic calendars will remain problematic. Though standards (iCAL, iMIP) have been set and implemented by many electronic calendar system vendors and service providers, their commitment to interoperability will remain lukewarm.
Key Messaging and Collaboration Trends, 2005 is available from Ferris Research for $595. For purchase information, contact sales@ferris.com, or call 650-452-6215.
About Ferris Research
Ferris Research is a San Francisco-based market and technology research firm that specializes in messaging and collaboration technologies such as email, instant messaging, wireless connectivity, and virus and spam control. For more information, visit https://email-museum.com/ or call +1 (650) 452-6215.
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