Microsoft ‘dominates’ email with Exchange improvements
Sep 2nd
A study recently released by market research firm Gartner has crowned Microsoft as the industry leader in email management services.
The MarketScope for Email Systems study ranked the most commonly used enterprise email systems and services. While Google and VMware email services were also rated "positive," none compared with Microsoft’s email management platforms. Gartner declared Microsoft "dominates the e-mail and calendar system market" while giving the company the highest rating in the study.
Some of Microsoft’s recent updates have helped the company maintain its leader position in the market. The company has weathered competition from Google by reducing the price of its hosted Exchange email server, while also improving the Exchange archiving storage capacity to 25GB per user. When compared to email offerings from Novell, which also received a "positive" rating in the study, Gartner determined Novell’s GroupWise email service "is being slowly eroded by Microsoft Exchange."
While other technologies for email storage have been emerging lately, the study indicates the consistent presence of Microsoft Exchange as the premier enterprise email management system.
In fact, the company has also released updates to Exchange this summer, as part of its initiative to continue to keep up with enterprise email demands.
Email security threats rising for SMBs, but leaders fail to focus on anti-spam
Sep 1st
A recent enterprise internet security report found small- and medium-sized businesses lack anti-spam protection.
The study was conducted by PandaLabs, the research branch of Panda Security, and found the email security priorities of 10,470 smaller companies with as many as 1,000 computers did not include Exchange anti-spam technology. According to the study, email was the second most common source for viruses, accounting for 21 percent of malware targeting small- and medium-sized businesses. Also, download-based viruses were significantly less common than those from spam emails, composing just 14 percent of malware that affected SMBs.
The research reveals the email security flaws of emerging SMB trends, as firewalls were much more popular for security investments than anti-spam technology. With an increasing number of viruses coming from spam emails, SMBs can safeguard their email networks with Exchange anti-spam solutions to prevent email infiltration that could result in data loss or computer crashes.
While the study involved businesses from across the globe, the U.S. enterprise sector is particularly prone to spam threats. A study released earlier this summer found the amount of spam coming from the United States grew by 2 percent during the first quarter of 2010.
New York lawmakers propose legislation to enforce archiving for governor’s emails
Aug 31st
A recent proposal will mandate the current and future governors of New York to use an email archiving solution that will offer permanent access to important documents, the Times Union reports.
The most recent proposal marks the second-consecutive year New York lawmakers have passed legislation that creates more strict regulations forcing governors to submit emails to state archives. The bill’s proponents have stressed the historical benefits of integrating a government email archiving solution.
"Without documentation from successive governors’ administrations, the history of New York state is, and will remain, incomplete," said Camille Jobin-Davis, assistant director of the state Committee on Open Government, in a memo in support of the bill, the news provider reports.
Lawmakers have been pushing for improved documentation of state government emails for the past year in an effort to fill a current void in the state’s information management requirements. Jobin-Davis criticized the state’s current email regulations and said they provide "minimal" guidance by allowing governments to freely destroy emails.
Email archiving is becoming an important tool to ensure transparency among government agencies, considering the impact of a recent report charging the federal government with illegitimate email management processes under the Bush administration.
Email management flaws affected Bush administration White House
Aug 31st
A recent report on a controversial federal lawsuit reveals the importance of legitimate email archiving solutions.
The report was published by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and alleges White House officials serving during George W. Bush’s presidency had declined to implement a secure email archiving solution. As a result, millions of email documents went missing, and a lengthy legal battle ensued between the Bush administration, CREW and the National Security Archive.
"Despite repeated warnings that information was being lost, Bush administration officials repeatedly and willfully turned a blind eye to the problem," said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director.
Had the administration employed a secure email archiving solution, the officials may have avoided some of the case’s legal ramifications, as most of the allegations stem from the administration’s email management processes after its own email archiving project failed.
The case indicates the impact of email management issues upon even the largest organizations. Smaller institutions and businesses can safeguard their information and avoid legal fees for cases involving email security violations by leveraging the benefits of email archiving solutions.
Smaller businesses have already begun realizing the benefits of secure email management, as a recent report found email security was among the top three priorities for expanding small business IT budgets.
LA Dodgers designate external provider for email archiving assignment
Aug 30th
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ information technology team has recently announced a new email archiving solution to protect against any unforeseen information management issues.
The IT department working behind-the-scenes for the baseball team cited a need to provide email management and email security for its network of more than 300 users across a number of countries. The organization’s technology director, Ralph Esquibel, recently explained how the benefits of external email security support convinced him to introduce a new solution.
"I was a little bit hesitant at first to outsource any type of computing," he said. "But I quickly learned that it is a definite value-add. We have a very small IT team, and outsourcing has worked out well for us. It’s very easy to use and saves us a lot of time."
The team’s location, which puts it at risk for an environmental disaster, was another motivating factor to introduce email archiving to retrieve lost information.
"We are in the middle of an earthquake zone and work in a 50-year-old building," Esquibel added. "Having a disaster recovery and business continuity solution in place is essential."
In fact, more businesses may invest in email archiving solutions, as an expert in environmental law recently explained how the total economic impact of natural disasters has grown from $25 billion to $150 billion during the past 35 years.
Mixed email management trends driving SMBs to Exchange
Aug 30th
Email management trends among small- and medium-sized businesses may lead to an increase in the use of Microsoft Exchange, according to a recent study.
AMI-Partners recently conducted its worldwide SMB Cloud Services Practice survey that found 78 percent of small businesses and 31 percent of medium-sized businesses are using a hybrid Software-as-a-Service platform. As a result, the firm’s analysts expect more smaller companies to adopt Microsoft Exchange for their mixed email management systems.
"Small- and medium-sized businesses have their doubts, particularly around the security of a third-party hosting confidential numbers," said AMI Senior Associate Yedda Chew. "But companies like Microsoft and IBM who provide a convergence of on-premise and SaaS are clearing these concerns for interested SMBs who are trying to maximize the combination of cloud and on-premise issues."
Regarding overall email management trends, the study also revealed nearly 134,000 of U.S.-based SMBs not currently using Software-as-a-Service plan to adopt a hosted solution such as Microsoft Exchange.
The emerging trends indicate the smaller enterprise sector is more likely to adopt a combination of Microsoft’s online Exchange offerings, in accordance with its on-premise Exchange email management platform, to take advantage of both formats.
Study: Businesses see consistent presence of spam messages
Aug 30th
A recently released study on enterprise email management is raising some concerns about email security.
Technology market research firm the Radicati Group recently conducted a study that found 48 percent of responding businesses felt the amount of spam that reaches their networks has remained consistent during the past 12 months. Even more alarmingly, 39 percent of respondents said the amount of spam infiltrating their enterprise email networks has increased during the past 12 months, compared to just 13 percent that reported a decrease.
The study, which included data from 100 global organizations representing more than 300,000 total email users, also found 47 percent of respondents experienced growth in their IT budgets from 2009 to 2010. Businesses with growing IT budgets, and consistent spam threats, may protect their networks with Exchange anti-spam software that can prevent email security issues.
Email management technology is even more critical for businesses based in the United States. A study by security firm Sophos released last month found the U.S. continued to be the world’s most common source for spam email messages during the second quarter of this year, representing 15.2 percent of the worldwide spam market.
Exchange 2010 disclaimers: What’s new?
Jun 7th
With each new version of Exchange Server, Microsoft introduces more advanced email disclaimer options. In Exchange 2010, the following new disclaimer features have been added:
- Active Directory fields: Email disclaimers can now include Active Directory merge fields. This allows you to include merge fields within your disclaimer text , such as Sender name, Email, Address, Phone number and more. This is particularly useful if you are adding an email signature.
- Remote images: Email disclaimers can now include remote images (not embedded images), such as a company logo.
- HTML disclaimers: It is now possible to add disclaimers in HTML (in Exchange 2007 it was only possible to add plain text disclaimers).
In Exchange 2010 the email disclaimers are still configured from the Transport Rules, like they were in Exchange 2007 (see our previous post ‘How to Configure an Email Disclaimer in Exchange 2007’). The only difference is that in Exchange 2010, the dialog where you enter the actual disclaimer text now also allows you to include HTML code, image tags and Active Directory merge fields.
Although these features greatly improve the disclaimer functionality in Exchange 2010, you might still find that they do not fully meet your requirements. We have compiled a list of disclaimer features ‘missing’ in Exchange 2010 that are available in third party email disclaimer products for Exchange:
No disclaimer/signature positioning within email body: Exchange 2010 does not allow you to position your email signature or disclaimer below the most recent message text (you can only select to add it at the top or bottom of the email message). Some third party applications can place the email disclaimer or signature after the most recent message text, instead of at the very bottom of the email. This is especially desirable if you are using email signatures and if you want to recipient to actually ‘see’ the disclaimer.
No support for embedded images: Exchange 2010 does not allow you to embed images in your disclaimer or signature. This means that if you want to include a picture in your disclaimer or signature when using Exchange 2010, you must include it as an IMG tag, pointing to a URL containing the image. This is highly undesirable since many email programs, including Microsoft Outlook, block access to linked images by default. Many third party applications are capable of inserting an image stored on a local drive into the message. These images do not get blocked by Microsoft Outlook.
Disclaimer does not show in Sent Items: Exchange 2010 does not show your email signature or disclaimer in the Sent Items in Outlook. This not only means that your users cannot see what their email looked like, it also means that your email archive does not contain the actual email that was sent and will therefore not be legally correct. Especially when adding disclaimers it is essential that proof is obtained that the disclaimer was added.
No message fields: Exchange Server 2010 does not allow you to use message fields that are retrieved from the email message, such as recipient name and date. It can be useful to include the actual recipient name in the disclaimer as follows: This email is only intended for [recipient name]. Adding the actual recipient names instead of stating ‘the individual(s) to whom it is addressed’ makes the confidentiality notice more specific and effective. It can also be useful to ‘date stamp’ the disclaimer, indicating when it was added to the message.
No distinction between initial email and replies/forwards: Many companies like to add a longer signature on the first email (with for instance the corporate mailing address and company logo), and then a shorter signature with only the person’s phone number and email address. This functionality is not available in Exchange 2010, but is available in some third party email disclaimer products.
No HTML editor: Exchange 2010 does not include an HTML editor for creating your disclaimer or signature. Of course there are many HTML editors that you could use to create your email disclaimer or signature and then copy and paste the HTML source into the Exchange 2010 disclaimer text, but this is not so user friendly, and can be cumbersome if dealing with a number of different signatures and disclaimers.
No preconfigured AD merge fields: If you want to make use of Active Directory merge fields in your Exchange 2010 disclaimer text, you have to find the correct field code and then enter the code in between double percentage signs (%%) within the disclaimer text. This again can be cumbersome if you are using many fields, and more importantly can be prone to mistakes if the fields are not entered correctly within the disclaimer text. Third party disclaimer products allow you to insert preconfigured AD fields and some include a Preview utility to preview the disclaimer using a selected user’s AD information. This gives you the peace of mind that the disclaimer or signature was correctly configured.
Red Earth Software are developers of Policy Patrol Disclaimers, email disclaimer and email signature software for Microsoft Exchange Server. Policy Patrol was the first server based email disclaimer product for Exchange Server to show the disclaimer and signature in the Sent Items of Outlook without requiring any client software or allowing users to edit or remove the disclaimer before sending.
Forrester study reveals workers not ready to give up email any time soon
Dec 23rd
A recent Forrester study held among 3700 knowledge workers reveals that 77% of workers use email for collaborative work and only 5% use social media such as wikis, blogs and social networks. When asked whether they would like to see any improvement in the way they communicate, they responded that they prefer to keep using the same tools with improvements, rather than using a whole new set of tools to communicate. Respondents mostly named the following points that needed improvement in email: miscommunication, scattered files and delays awaiting replies from others. In the study, entitled ‘Building the Future of Collaboration’, Forrester concludes that ‘respondents hope tomorrow will be similar, but better’.
Are companies unknowingly exposing themselves to the potentially harmful effects of cc mass mailings?
Dec 7th
This could happen to you: Your new sales rep is eager to get results and fast. He decides to contact his 200 customers with your latest promotional offer. In order to get the message across in the minimum amount of time, he creates one email, pastes all the email addresses in the Cc: field and hits ‘Send’. Now he just needs to wait for the orders to come in.
Your nightmare has begun. A potential privacy breach and damage to your company’s reputation has been set in motion. Not only has this one email exposed your valuable customer list and opened you up to 200 potential lawsuits for privacy breach, it has severely damaged your company’s reputation. If your company is this careless with its customer information, what does that say about the quality of the services and products you provide? And you don’t even want to think about what will happen when the recipients hit the ‘Reply to All’ button and start complaining about your company’s spam practices and asking you to remove them from the list. A true ‘mail storm’ could erupt with your company as the source. Download the Red Earth Software white paper ‘Preventing Privacy Breach – Why You Need to Block Cc Mass Mailings’ to find out about how these undesirable mass mailings can occur, the damage they can do, and how you can protect your company by preventing these emails from leaving your network.