E-mail Management Troubles Continue

It is clear that for many organizations, e-mail management will be the “killer app” that finally gets them to think in some sort of systematic way about getting control of unstructured content. I was struck by the article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal on the Intel/AMD case (NASDAC GS: INTC and NYSE: AMD). Much of the recent coverage has centered on e-mail. Intel yesterday indicated that it had already spent $3.3 million on reproducing the e-mails in question, and that it would likely need to spend millions more. The coverage notes that one of the primary issues is that e-mails in the Intel system are automatically deleted after 35-45 days if employees take no proactive action to save them. In one of the more vivid analogies used to describe e-mail management, AMD criticizes this policy for its “grim reaper” impact on evidence in the case. I can’t help but think back on all the presentations I’ve done in which I ask the audience, “How many of you have ever gotten an e-mail from IT telling you to delete everything older than X days because they need space on the server?” and seeing two-thirds of the hands go up.

Chart is from our new State of the Industry Study.