Enterprise Messaging Market Trends, 2005-2008

SUMMARY

Report Focus

Messaging is the group of infrastructure elements that provide email, instant messaging (IM), calendaring, voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other communication services for an organization. As such, messaging has becoming the conceptual equivalent of plumbing or electrical wiring for most organizations  it is a necessary part of the business fabric that virtually no organization of any size can operate without effectively. The primary data sources for this report were two surveys of North American organizations that Osterman Research conducted specifically for this report during September and October 2005. The surveys fielded a total of 87 questions and were completed with 141 respondents for the larger survey and 114 respondents for the smaller survey. Respondents to the surveys were decision makers and/or influencers for their organizations' messaging system(s). Key Findings Presented in this Report

• Forty percent of organizations have centralized/consolidated their messaging servers into a single data center, while another 37% are working toward consolidation.
• Increasing backup and restore times, growth in messaging storage and increasing message size - all storage-related issues - are the three leading messaging-related problems discovered in the research for this report.
• Only one-third of organizations believe that they are well equipped or very well equipped to address the variety of regulatory, legal and HR-related issues surrounding email.
• One-half of organizations are either concerned or extremely concerned about the leakage of sensitive information via approved and supported applications and communications channels, such as email.
• About one in three organizations view data mining from the corporate messaging system as either important or extremely important. By contrast, the ability to restore data back into email systems from backup tapes and other sources for legal discovery purposes is viewed as important or extremely important by most nearly two-thirds of organizations.
• Only one out of eight organizations is very confident that their estimate of the true cost of providing services messaging services for their organization is correct, while another 45% are only somewhat confident and the remaining 43% are not confident.
• Among the many initiatives that organizations will undertake during the next year, eradicating threats like spam, viruses and spyware top the list of the most important initiatives. More than one-half of organizations view new efforts to eradicate these threats as important or extremely important, followed by initiatives focused on email policy compliance, platform upgrades and migration and capacity planning.
• While only three percent of organizations have actually migrated to Linuxbased messaging servers, one in seven organizations is willing to consider doing so now, about one-quarter are willing to consider doing so by late 2006 and nearly two in five organizations might consider it by the end of 2007.
• When asked about the likelihood of using an 'alternative' messaging system, a number of vendors were mentioned as potential replacements for their current vendors' offerings.
• One in five organizations has not deployed any sort of disaster recovery capability for their email system. Even among those that have done so, there is substantial improvement needed in many cases from a business continuity perspective.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Executive Summary

2 Methodology and Overview

3 Current Messaging Infrastructures and Practices

4 Messaging Security

5 Messaging Costs

6 Mobile Messaging

7 Future Enterprise Messaging Plans

8 Vendors of Messaging Solutions

List of Figures

• Industries Surveyed
• Current Messaging Architectures and Plans
• Growth in Total Messaging Storage, Fall 2004 to Fall 2005
• "Has your organization deployed any storage systems that are SEC/NASD compliant?" Importance of Being Better Able to Manage Email Attachments to Save on Storage Requirements
• Importance of Various Factors When Selecting Storage Capabilities for Messaging
• Support for Unified Messaging
• Minutes of Unplanned Downtime per Month
• Minutes of Planned Downtime per Month
• Use of Mailbox Quotas
• Preference for a Single Messaging Management System that Provides All Necessary Management Functions
• Perceived Benefits of an Integrated Messaging Management Solution
• Types of Communications for Which it is Important to Provide Secure/Encrypted Messaging
• Importance of Various Types of Encryption
• Factors That Have Kept Organizations From Deploying Secure/Encrypted Messaging
• Desirability of Various Secure/Encrypted Messaging Delivery Models
• Satisfaction with Secure/Encrypted Messaging Capabilities
• Frequency With Which Email Policies are Reviewed and/or Modified
• Functions That are or Would be Given Permission to Create, Modify or Delete Email Policies
• Organizations' Views on How Well Equipped They Are to Address Regulatory, HR and Legal Issues Surrounding Email
• Status of Deploying Pre-Send and Post-Send Email Review Capabilities
• Level of Concern About the Leakage of Sensitive Information Via Approved and Supported Applications and Communications Channels
• Challenge With Lexicons as a Factor in the Decision Not to Implement Pre-Send or Post-Send Review of Email
• Support for Messaging Auditing and Archiving Policies
• Speed With Which End Users Expect Messages to be Retrieved from the Messaging Archive or Backup System
• Speed With Which Legal Counsel Expects Messages to be Retrieved from the Messaging Archive or Backup System
• Organizations' Views on the Importance of Data Mining From Corporate Messaging Systems
• Importance of Restoring Data Back into the Email System from Backup Tapes and Other Sources for Legal Discovery Purposes
• Preferences for Storing Messages in Email Archiving Systems
• Preferences for Commodity vs Brand Name Storage to Achieve Compliance in Email Archiving
• Importance of Various Regulatory Requirements
• "How confident are you about your estimate of the cost of providing messaging in your organization?"
• Mobile Platforms that Organizations Currently Support
• Most Used Applications on Mobile Platforms
• Various Factors Used in Selecting Mobile Devices
• Decision-Makers for Purchasing Mobile Solutions/Devices
• Difficulty of Various Aspects in Managing Mobile Devices
• Plans for Migrating to a New Messaging System
• Importance of Various Corporate Initiatives, Fall 2005 through Fall 2006
• Plans for Upgrading to Microsoft Exchange 2003
• Plans for Upgrading to Lotus Notes/Domino R7
• Plans for Deploying Unified Messaging Capabilities
• Preferences for Various Messaging and Messaging Management Service Delivery Models
• Organizations' Interest in Integrating Email With Other Information/Data Objects
• Organizations' Preferences for Messaging-Oriented Operating System Platform
• Likelihood of Migrating to a New and Better Messaging System Based on Whether or Not Desktop Clients Could be Retained
• Willingness to Consider Switching to Linux-Based Messaging Servers
• Expected Benefits from a Linux-Based Messaging System Compared to Current Systems
• Factors that Prevent Organizations from Switching to a Linux-Based Messaging System
• Current Status of Messaging Retention Policies
• Current Status of Non-Messaging Document Retention Policies
• Status of Email/IM Archiving Plans
• Form Factors Planned for Email/IM Archiving Solutions
• Need to Implement Organization-Specific Policies for Compliance
• Intention to Integrate Email with Electronic Content Management and/or Records Management Systems
• Percentage of Users on Various Email Platforms
• Breakdown of Users on Various Email Platforms
• Breakdown of Microsoft Exchange Users on Different Versions
• Breakdown of Lotus Notes/Domino Users on Different Versions

List of Tables

• Messaging Management Problems
• Sample Downtime for Various Organizations
• Messaging Capabilities Currently Deployed and Planned for Deployment
• Median Expenditures for Messaging Management Capabilities
• Influencers, Champions and Approvers for Messaging Capabilities Among Various Organizational Functions
• Messaging Management Vendors Currently in Use
• Likelihood of Using Various Alternative Messaging System Vendors
• Ratings for Various Vendors of Messaging-Related Offerings
• Vendors of Messaging Products and Services