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Worldwide Email Archiving Market Reached $180 Million In 2004

A new IDC study reveals that email archiving applications revenue is expected to top $180 million worldwide in 2004, up from just $33 million two years ago, and will to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 50 percent through 2008. Demand will continue to be driven by the explosive growth in email and other electronic records, the increased regulatory environment and focus on corporate governance, and the need to respond to urgent litigation and discovery requests.

"Organizations now more than ever have a much greater obligation than before to ensure that their email is retained in its original state without being altered, viewed, or deleted by unauthorized people," said Julie Rahal Marobella, senior research analyst at the Information Management for Compliance division of IDC. "As a result, email archiving has emerged as a crucial piece of a comprehensive, sustainable strategy for corporate compliance, corporate governance, and risk management."

Mergers and acquisitions involving email archiving, storage software, and content management vendors are transforming the landscape of this emerging market. Vendors must find the most appealing and efficient way to address both urgent near-term and important long-term customer needs for automating the increasingly important business process of archiving content in internal and external email communications.

"The need to know what information your firm has and where you can store and find that information in an efficient manner is driving the surge in demand for email archiving applications. Whether it is delivered as dedicated solutions or as embedded functionality, email archiving will most likely be appearing in a datacenter near you," said Mark Levitt, research vice president of Collaborative Computing at IDC.

IDC's new study, Worldwide Email Archiving Applications 2004-2008 Forecast and 2003 Vendor Shares: To Be Dedicated Solutions or Not to Be -- That Is the Question for the Forecast Scenarios, presents the following:

• IDC's first market sizing and forecast for email archiving applications delivered as software, service, and appliance.

• IDC's 2003 leading vendor revenue and market shares.

• Three email archiving applications revenue forecast scenarios reflecting the variability of this emerging market, with identification of the most probable to occur.