Radicati Group: Email archiving market to grow to $6.1 billion by 2013

Contributed by Debbie Howlett (Mittwoch, 21 Juli 2010) | Category : Email archiving

As companies without email archiving solutions look to implement them and organizations with slightly older applications plan upgrades, vendors of the technology are experiencing greater business.

A new report from the Radicati Group found this will likely continue until companies ensure they're in compliance with new federal regulations demanding greater transparency by organizations in a number of industries. The report states the email archiving industry will be a $6.1-billion-per-year industry in 2013, which represents substantial annual growth as the industry closed 2006 at just under $800 million.

The significance of email archiving solutions continues to rise as almost all office correspondence moves to the computer. Radicati's report found the average employee sends more than 160 messages a day from their computers. This includes emails and instant messages among employees chatting during the workday. All of these messages are subject to regulatory compliance measures implemented by regulatory authorities. Radicati further estimated this number will jump to more than 215 messages per day by 2013.

The growth has been aided by expanding regulations to new industries, while tightening those already held to the standards. For example, the healthcare industry has been subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act since 1996. However, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, which has forced hospitals to protect patients' information with greater scrutiny.

Other federal mandates have boosted regulations requirements; in fact, AMR Research recently reported companies will spend $80 million this year on adjusting aspects of their operations to ensure compliance with new regulations.

"Organizations in virtually all industries from financial services to healthcare, government and beyond are now subject to some level of regulation concerning the storage and management of their electronic data. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the U.S. Patriot Act, HIPAA, SEC rules, state laws and corporate policies are all part of this dynamic regulatory environment," according to HeadlinesDotCom.com.

Among the companies struggling to adhere to new federal mandates is Piper Jaffray, which the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority recently fined $700,000 for failure to comply with email archiving requirements. From 2002 through 2008, more than four million emails were not properly stored by the company. Also, the fine included punishment for failing to inform FINRA of technical difficulties, which the company reported is partially responsible for its email archiving failure.