What does the typical user do in this situation? Most Microsoft Exchange users will simply archive some mail off their server and onto their own hard drive into what is known as a Personal Folder (a PST file). That's fine until the user leaves the company, or when he upgrades to a new version of Outlook or upgrades to a new PC. Then what happens to those archived files? How do you find and retrieve them? Do they contain sensitive information and can the archived files be searched?

Spam-drownings

"Users are drowning in the sea of mail, often spam," said Yusuf Goolamabbas, managing architect at Hong Kong-based messaging services company Outblaze.

Email eats up ever-increasing amounts of storage with inappropriate use of email through unnecessary responses, cc'ing of recipients and large file transfers. Add to this the regulatory demands and corporate policies being placed on email as a business record, and email management becomes ever more critical. "Complex retention policies lead to organizations having to retrofit [email management] to their legacy mail systems," said Goolamabbas, "or invest in complex migrations to tools which allow for better support."

Multiple drivers