Email explosion fuels archiving demand

IDC is expecting 'robust revenue growth' for email archiving applications

Dramatic expansion in email and email attachments, combined with increased attention to regulatory compliance and corporate governance, will continue to drive "robust revenue" growth in the worldwide email archiving application market, analysts predicted today.

IDC estimated that 2005 revenues will top $310m worldwide, and grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34.5 per cent through to 2009.

"As email becomes widely accepted as a record of business, and as more firms adopt record retention policies that include electronic communications (email and instant messaging), we expect to see a robust 'uptick' in the deployment of email archiving applications," said Vivian Tero, senior research analyst for compliance infrastructure at IDC.

Mark Levitt, research vice president for collaborative computing at IDC, added: "Basic email archiving functionality will become increasingly available in messaging and storage applications, but many organisations will continue to purchase dedicated solutions that provide a better fit for compliance and corporate governance requirements and integration with existing infrastructure. "

The analyst firm's newly released study suggested that consolidation within the email archiving applications market will persist.

The study also predicted that organisations will continue to show a strong preference for 'insourced' rather than outsourced email archiving solutions.