Poll: Do you plan to introduce an email archiving solution in your organization?

For the time being, this article may be the last one in my series about email archiving. Perhaps I will add a few notes about GFI MailArchiver at a later date, because I will review this product for a German magazine. Even though I didn’t review an email archiving tool in this series, I think that the benefits of email archiving were clear.

Since I probably influenced many with this series, I don’t expect this poll to be representative. However, I think that the results could still be interesting. I already was planning to introduce an email archiving solution in my organization, mostly because I didn’t like the fact that our email backups only lasted for a relatively short time period. For most organizations compliance is probably the most important reason for introducing an email archiving software. But since, I have looked at the features of email archiving tools, and it has become clear that the technical benefits are most interesting from an administrator’s point of view.

Of course, email archiving also has one major disadvantage: you will have a new system to maintain. Thus, it will certainly make more work for you in the beginning. This is probably the main reason why many organizations hesitate to introduce an email archiving solution. Even if you believe that features such as user-based restores relieve the strain on the helpdesk personnel in the long run, you have to first find the time to evaluate different products, install everything, and train end-users. The problem is that the day when you have some extra time will most likely never come.

Anyway, I am curious to know how you will vote.