Why are some companies in the world not buying archiving solutions? Most common reason is cost is prohibitive! Do they not know that top legal experts in the field of email compliance have been recommending organisations cannot be using costs or no budget as an excuse. I recently heard David Ferris, from Ferris Research (www.ferris.com) state that he feels that the cost of storage is ever decreasing and today it is pertinent to keep everything as there maybe a record that you may require in years to come, which could save you and your organisation in a matter. I share these same views. Using the cost of storage can no longer be used as an excuse in my book.

Today there are many pieces of legislations encouraging us to retain records; in the world there are ten's of thousands of them. They include in the U.S. tax records – 7 years, SOX – 7 years, and elsewhere there are Marketing in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) – E.U and Pharma/Healthcare regulations. Majority of the records that need to be kept are likely to be found in the email system, and furthermore there is also a lot of knowledge residing in the email system which may be useful at a later date by the organisation. I am finding many of our clients are keeping records for around 84 months (7 years), based on some key financial & tax regulations. Organisations need to wake up to their responsibilities; IT departments need to involve and talk with senior management that not archiving email is potentially opening the organisation to risk or even in some serious matters a criminal offence. And if you don’t do anything, who gets locked up? Is it the CEO, Company Secretary, who has the responsibility of handling the court order when it is issued? Maybe many IT managers have it in for CEO's, Company Secretaries and want them to go to jail! I hope not.