Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/4904
14 MESSAGING NEWS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 and many, many more. What fol- lows is a look at current regulations, a discussion about archiving and eDiscovery for collaboration systems, and some thoughts about what this means for organizations. Regulations A wide range of regulations and stat- utes require organizations to safe- guard and manage complete records that document what happened in a business or organization. Financial services companies are subject to SEC and FINRA regulations, life sci- ences organizations to 21 CFR Part 11, federal government agencies and defense contractors to DoD 5015.2, and companies publicly traded in U.S. markets to Sarbanes-Oxley. Common among these regulations and stat- utes is the concept that the subject matter determines what needs to be managed, and not the medium used for transmitting or communicating information in the record. This means that business decisions communi- cated through collaboration systems are just as relevant for records man- agement as a printed contract. A second point of commonality is that a complete record is required, not a haphazard or partial one. And third, once a record has been captured and stored, it must be safeguarded from unauthorized change, and if it is changed, an audit trail of all changes must be maintained. The courts have demonstrated a willingness to enforce compliance with records management regulations, and there are steep costs for non-compliance. Beyond compliance with external regulations, though, there is a need to ensure a complete business record is maintained for legal discovery. For companies dealing with litigation A rchiving and eDiscovery for email are a well-understood, even if not so well-practiced set of requirements; but compared to the current status of archiving and eDiscovery for collaboration systems, it's the gold standard. In the email archiving space, there are many ven- dors and signs of market maturity. For example, the acquisitions to con- solidate capability and acquire new technology. There are also examples from courts where email evidence has been critical, and given the back-and- forth conversational and interactional nature of email, archiving email mes- sages is not hard. Life is a bit more complex when it comes to collaboration systems though, and for our purposes, that means systems like SharePoint, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections, Oracle Beehive, Central Desktop, Socialtext, BY MICHAEL SAMPSON Archiving and for Collaboration Systems