"survey reveals that more than half of all businesses have no e-mail backup and recovery plan in place. *" That's assuming you have company emails in a centralized place where you could find them to begin with! What about emails that are scattered between online inboxes (AOL, MSN, Yahoo etc), Outlook on a PC, Outlook on a laptop and even a few on the mobile device?

Now add the pressure of new Federal e-discovery regs enacted Dec 1, 2006. Essentially, changes to the U.S. Federal Rules for Civil Procedure (Rules 26, 34-37) state that every electronic document stored by business - email, instant messages, financials, voice mail plus text and graphical document - must be easily retrievable. The same holds true for state courts based on the Uniform Rules Relating To Discovery Of Electronically Stored Information. WOW! If you have no strategy for dealing with this you are doing a "high wire act - without a net!"

"E-messaging methods and storage" must have a company strategy. Do you have one that can hold up under conditions of disaster or court litigation? No one starts their daily routine with thoughts of disaster and litigation - but it can and does happen - even to very small companies. Email has become an essential and critical format in daily business. Even IM (Instant Messaging) use continues to rise and now VoIP even allows us to have voice mails delivered to and stored in our inbox.

Lack of ownership of private email servers, the need to be flexible (i.e. work from office or home) plus use of mobile devices is what causes businesses to live in danger of losing critical emails, and being legally exposed. A good solution does not require buying expensive and maintenance intensive email servers, only to have access to a scaleable server environment that YOU control.

Server level control is required for creation of actual User Login Accounts, each with an email address and IM name, branded under your company domain name. By using this strategy you're assured of having a central repository for all e-messages (and proprietary data within them) that is fully under your control. You can issue (and retract) accounts to employees, contractors or others and feel secure that copy of a "critical company message" - that's maybe stored on their hard disk which you have no access to, is not the only copy!

Google Apps For Your Domain GAFYD.net is an excellent e-messaging strategy - get it now! Call 303-932-8146, for an FREE email strategy evaluation + LIVE online demo. Gain server level controls, near bottomless email storage, synchronized mobile access and 24x7x365 worldwide access for only a fraction more than you pay today. Make a 2008 resolution - get an e-messaging strategy and insurance for unknown events.

* ApplicationContinuity.org surveyed 434 IT professionals responsible for e-mail continuity in small (0-99 employees), medium (100-999 employees) and large (1,000 or more employees) enterprises. ResearchCorp.org provided the analysis.

Best Regards, TOM