Entries categorized under “SaaS”

Being the last calendar day of 2008, I thought it only appropriate to take a moment and look back at the most viewed blog entries on the DCIG website for the past year. While some were topics that I expected to receive a lot of attention when the blog was posted, others were blog topics that essentially came out of nowhere to garner a large number of page views. To be honest, I never thought that entries on topics like cable management and cable labeling would resonate with readers but ended up capturing a couple of the top spots for 2008. Meanwhile topics like the FTC's Red Flag Rules were so popular on DCIG's web site that it led me to write columns that eventually were picked up by websites like Network World and BusinessWeek. (read more)

I just got back to Omaha after spending the last three days at Storage Networking World (SNW) and used the time on my flight home to reflect upon some of the conversations I had during my time there. While I still plan to do more blog entries in the coming days around the technologies that I reviewed at SNW, I first wanted to share some of the thoughts and feelings of those in attendance about how they think the economic crisis will affect tech in general and how companies should prepare to act in 2009. In particular, I wanted to share the thoughts of those who have weathered economic downturns in the past and how users have responded to them. (read more)

These are just some of the reasons that software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions have taken off in recent years. Organizations don't want to pay large up-front licensing costs for software they may never use. Instead they are opting to pay for solutions as they need them so they only incur costs as their organization grows. In so doing, they can easily obtain software and pay for it as their specific business needs change. (read more)

Overall, SMB's have a potential shortcut to 'Litigation Readiness' through SaaS outsourcing of the primary messaging and file storage systems. Legal definitely needs to be involved in the provider selection and RFP process, but IT should welcome another sponsor to the project. Legal should request documentation on system capabilities (search/culling for Rule 26 disclosures and Meet & Confer), Chain of Custody, exception reporting, deposition fees for authenticating evidence (Rule 30(b)(6)), SLA's for retrieval rates, physical/electronic security and the actual storage format of the ESI. The last is particularly important in case the requesting party makes arguments for using alternative search engines on the ESI. Governmental agencies are required to store records in an open format like MSG files for email, so any SaaS provider who has public sector clients should utilize an open format storage system. With a little research and diligence, SMB's can leverage SaaS to achieve litigation readiness in a cost effective manner. (read more)

Email and other electronic communications are defacto business records and public agencies must take steps to preserve and give access to government records or face the consequences. (read more)

Whether we are talking about email, IM, Text, VOIP or any other communication stream, recent cases have challenged the presumption of corporate privacy, privilege and ownership. Proper policy and training seem to be the answer for domestic corporations who use a SaaS email provider or other US based Text/SMS provider. When dealing with world-wide infrastructure, a corporation must engage specialized counsel and actively monitor cases and publications like those of The Sedona Conference Working Group 6: International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure. Although the rules seem to be changing, companies can make informed risk vs. cost decisions to minimize their potential exposure if they are cognizant of the issues and do not just pretend that they do not exist. (read more)

The recent Quon v. Arch Wireless decision has raised many questions about a company's ability and right to monitor employee communications. Fortunately, a deeper read shows that the real issues centered around the employee's reasonable expectation of privacy, which a well documented and communicated policy solves handily. So an employee might ask, "I know that the company owns my email, but do they really read it?" (read more)

One of the hardest things in a HR investigation is to disprove false accusations of sexual harassment, inappropriate content, fixed bids and many other scenarios. It is very easy to fake printed out email and IM conversations that would not stand up to close scrutiny if still in electronic form. The only way to prove that someone did not send a message is to have all the messages within that time frame and the ability to retrieve them. Think about how hard it is to set the context for an off-color email without having the complete historical conversations between a supervisor and a former employee. (read more)

As CEO I'm happy to say my sales, engineering and operations teams are executing against our shared vision. AXS-One latest functionality includes a very sought after Case Manager module. It is providing our customers with a true self-service discovery and review capability. If I may indulge a bit on my team's hard work; the Case Manager enables our customers to: * Conduct initial searches themselves * Review and modify the results of the searches * Add dispositions to the searched results * Package the search for additional review by outside counsel/other 3rd party (read more)

This situation peaked my interest because it was an email archiving product for gmail. Specifically, the application is an end user archiving product called g-archiver. The product works by accessing a users gmail.com mailbox account and copying all their email to a local device. In order to copy the email from gmail.com the product requires that a user input their username and password. (Note: Here is the URL to download the product - www.brothersoft.com/g-archiver-58027.html) (read more)

Autonomy/Zantaz, Microsoft/Fortiva and Google/Postini are three SaaS based archiving solutions you should evaluate if you are considering hosted email archiving and eDiscovery for Microsoft Exchange. Since Microsoft/Fortiva does not support Lotus Notes Domino, you should limit your research to Autonomy and Google if you also require Lotus Notes Domino support. Autonomy's Zantaz was founded on the premise of SaaS archiving for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes Domino, whereas Google/Postini started offering it in 2006. Google acquired Postini in 2007 and added significant support and data center services to support their growing Enterprise customer base. (read more)

Fortiva identifies security and flexible search as two key elements in the product line. Security is a critical component in any Software as a Servie (SaaS) offering. When all the data is stored off site with another company, encryption is your last bastion of hope against would be thieves, privacy violations, etc. (read more)

Fortiva would have been a better option for Dell (NYSE:DELL), had Fortiva been local to the Austin area. According to Praising Gaw, VP of Marketing at Fortiva, they maintain a good business relationship with Microsoft as the sole provider for Microsoft Business Productivity Infrastructure Online Services for Enterprises. Since Dell also values a good relationship with Microsoft, why didn't Dell Computer Corporation nurture the Fortiva relationship? One obvious answer is there weren't any vested interests in Fortiva, by Dell Computer Corporation or the Dell family. (read more)

Considering competitive forces from Google, Autonomy and a fleeting partnership with Iron Mountain, it was in Michael Dell's best interest to save his investment and reel in MessageOne. Moreover, with all the storage activity going on at Dell, the acquisition could propel the MessageOne services to equal footing in the enterprise with Google, making the $12 annual fee for MessageOne a bargain for Dell related technologies. (read more)