email archiving

Last updated: April 24, 2009

I hope my three previous articles about the benefits of email archiving have convinced you that this is an interesting topic. In the upcoming posts in this series, I will discuss the features of different archiving solutions. Prior to that, I will publish a list of all email archiving tools of which I am aware. I also want to take this opportunity to make a few remarks about the value of this series.

Some of you might have expected that I would review some email archiving products or compare them in a feature chart. However, I think it is more useful to list the features that are relevant when it comes to email archiving. Comparison charts are usually outdated before you even finish testing all products. To maintain an up-to-date chart requires considerable resources which I don’t have. Comparisons that reflect the market situation at a certain point in time made sense in the print world. Once the magazine is published, it is of interest for a few weeks only. After that, it is only waste paper.

The feature list you will find in the coming posts will still be relevant for years to come. Perhaps you don’t intend to introduce an email archiving solution now, but I believe that sooner or later you will be forced to concern yourself with this subject. An outdated chart comparing a couple of products with respect to a few features won’t be very helpful to you in the future. However, a comprehensive list of all central features will be useful for a longer period of time and can provide an overview.

Once you know which features are important for your environment, you can easily narrow the products which come into question by browsing the vendors’ websites or by just asking them about the features that are crucial for you. The next step is that you should try the solutions in this focused list yourself. One of the most important features is the look-and-feel of the user interface. This feature can’t be captured by a comparison chart because it is, to a large degree, a matter of a taste.

The list of email archiving solutions I publish here is most likely still incomplete. I intend to update it whenever I encounter a new product. If you know of an email archiving tool that is not in the list, please just leave a comment below. You can also use my contact form if you don’t want to comment publicly. I will then add your suggestions to the list.

Series Navigation«Email-archiving software features – storage optionsEmail archiving software features – archive access»