The recently-released report "E-Mail Archiving Market, 2009-2013" by The Radicati Group is a comprehensive and insightful read. This blog post dives into revealing survey results included in the report, as well as exploring its focus on data-leak prevention.

November 03, 2009 - by Adam Bullock

An intriguing part of Radicati's market analysis was the results from a survey conducted mid-2009. It examined the attitudes and plans of corporate IT organizations for messaging and collaboration.

Storage was the highest motivator for organizations deploying an email archiving solution, garnering 56% of responses as the top choice. This makes sense, especially since the report reminds us that the average number of emails sent and received by a corporate email user will be nearly 31% higher in 2013, translating to 31 MB per day, compared with 20 MB per user per day on average in 2009. You have most likely experienced this growth at your office. Take a second to reflect on the exponential growth in traffic and increasingly larger size of emails contributing to the bloat of your inbox. IT decision-makers are well-aware of the need for storage solutions.

This survey also gave us a snapshot of data loss (or data leak) prevention's growing profile in the workplace. "Data-leak prevention" covers a lot of territory, but Radicati defines it as "the act of comprehensively protecting sensitive data against both inadvertent and malicious loss." In terms of email, DLP often refers to outbound content filtering solutions. Of the respondents in the survey, only 6 percent indicated they had a DLP solution in place, though 38% will be looking to add that kind of service to their system, or will be considering the need for it, in the next 12-18 months. In the wake of new guidelines from HIPAA and other regulatory updates and amendments, DLP adoption will likely grow even more.

The accidental release of sensitive data to unintentional parties can hurt financially, ruin a reputation, and can be incredibly embarrassing. Prohibitive efforts to manage these risks are well worth it, says the report: "As a rule, when selecting a DLP solution, features and capabilities should be given more weight than the solution's costs."

The 188-page report, available at Radicati's website, is a very interesting read and includes a lot more, such as a breakdown of each of the major players in the email archiving industry as well as data on market share, four-year forecasts and other statistics.

Adam Bullock is the digital media specialist for Smarsh and veteran blogger. In previous stops in his professional career, Adam has spent time with an Internet marketing firm as a project manager as well as a leading domain name registrar.