FIGURE A

Marie Patterson has some very interesting (and scary) things to say about the importance of email storage and retrieval. Click picture for a larger image.

Marie's a VP of AXS-One, a company that specializes in records management and compliance. While the topic of email storage and retrieval at first seems incredibly dry, once you read this interview, you'll be shocked at what could happen if you don't have good email storage and retrieval procedures in place.

David: Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do for AXS-One. What's your background personally?

Marie: I'm the Vice President for Corporate Marketing. I've worked in the software industry for almost 20 years, primarily in the area of archiving and archiving-based software solutions for the past 10.

David: Why is email archiving, storage, and retrieval an important issue for network managers and C-level executives to care about?

Marie: While organizations have accelerated their use of email to the point that the majority of all communication and transactions are now conducted via email, it would appear that only a minority have really thought through the effects of that decision -- either from an IT or business perspective. As a result, companies face exponentially growing infrastructure costs. So while the actual cost of storage has decreased, companies are still stuck with the overhead of that increased storage, increased backups, management, etc.

At the C-level, the real issue is again the lack of policies, as we're seeing in much-publicized cases like Morgan Stanley. Executives are concerned about anything that will affect shareholder value. As it relates to email, the issues are all risk related, so growing and unbudgeted e-discovery costs definitely affect the bottom line. Litigation that has to go to settlement because organizations are incapable of finding specific records affect the bottom line. High-profile litigation that ends up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal makes the organization look either incompetent or fraudulent. That affects the corporate image which, again, affects shareholder value.

David: On your Web site, you talk about records compliance management. Please explain why this is important for large companies.