Messaging guru Michael Osterman discusses the overlooked IM threat, the best low-cost archiving solutions and how social networking affects the enterprise in this chat transcript.
Moderator-Linda: Welcome and thank you for coming. Our guest today is Michael Osterman. Also watch for upcoming chats with Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels (October 1) and national IT recruiter Matt Colarusso (October 9). If you have requests for other guests for chats, please send an e-mail to jbort@nww.com. Now, onto the chat.
Michael_Osterman: Hello, everyone! It’s a pleasure to be here today.
Chris4742: What’s the biggest threat today in the messaging space?
Michael_Osterman: It really depends on where an organization is with regard to how well it is protecting its infrastructure. For example, newer types of spam, such as PDF spam or Excel spam can represent significant threats for orgs that have not done enough to protect against them. Viruses continue to pose a serious threat, but not so much for orgs that have multi-layered defenses. IM is probably the most underrated threat at this point because not enough orgs have deployed systems to protect against unfettered consumer IM use.
JeffCaruso: So, are consumer IM systems really the security threat to corporations we always hear about? Any IM-delivered viruses actually infiltrating companies?
Michael_Osterman: They are definitely are. Akonix, FaceTime and others have reported significant increases in the number of IM-borne threats so far this year.
lurker: But are you actually hearing from any big IT shops about IM viruses being a big deal?
Michael_Osterman: Most orgs tells us in our surveys that they have not been the victim of an IM borne virus, worm, etc. However, most of these threats are very quiet, capturing data, etc., and so I think the problem is probably underreported since not enough IT managers are focusing on it.
serverguy: What kinds of products are out there that can stop IM security messages from infecting the enterprise?
Michael_Osterman: There are a variety of server-side capabilities that can manage IM traffic, filtering out threats, URLs, preventing file transfer capabilities, etc. Many organizations try to block IM, but that’s not an effective strategy for preventing the threats. IM content really has to be managed as its own entity.
Western5041: I keep hearing that newer workers are more apt to use instant messaging or SMS texting rather than e-mail. Are the days of e-mail numbered?
Michael_Osterman: I don’t think so. IM is a great tool, but it is used primarily for its presence capability — most IM conversations end in a phone call, for example. There are times when you want to transmit information but don’t care about the current presence of the recipient, so e-mail will still be a great tool for those applications. Ultimately, we see a gradation of communications, in which people have a single contact point, such as an e-mail address. Recipients will then use directory-based rules to define how they want to receive communications — via e-mail, IM, voice, on their mobile device, etc. Senders won’t have to worry about which medium to chose — they will simply send a message and it will be received via the medium the recipient has chosen.
serverguy: What about mobile phones and viruses. Do I have to worry about an iPhone message infecting the network, and if I do, is there anyway to stop it?
Michael_Osterman: I think that’s a valid worry, especially if a single platform represents the majority of users in an organization. The iPhone problem at Duke University, for example, is a good case in point. There are mobile messaging server products that can defend against the spread of viruses, threats, etc.
Western5041: Have there been any mobile devices that you’ve seen recently that do a good job of handling messaging, either e-mail or IM?
Michael_Osterman: I use a Motorola Q and am generally pleased with it for e-mail, although less so for voice. The T-Mobile Dash is probably a better device, since it also supports WiFi, but I have not played with it as much. I don’t use BlackBerry or iPhone, although both have strong adherents.
Moderator-Linda: Pre-submitted question: What is the deal with Unified Communications? Isn’t it the same old “universal inbox” that we’ve been hearing about for years? Why should I take it seriously this time around?
Michael_Osterman: Yes and no. Yes, it’s a universal inbox that incorporates e-mail, voice-mail, fax, etc. in the inbox, but no, the products are more advanced today than in the past. Microsoft, IBM, Avaya, Cisco, and many, many other companies are delivering robust solutions that can make users more productive and allow them to be more mobile/remote than ever before.
serverguy: Will hosted messaging services like Google’s really be a serious alternative for the enterprise?
Michael_Osterman: I think hosted messaging is a good alternative for many orgs, including some very large ones. However, the cost advantage of hosting really is greatest for smaller orgs. That said, I think we’ll see alot of companies use a hybrid approach — something like an on-premise solution for a headquarters and a hosted solution for satellite offices. Real estate companies, retail establishments, etc. would be a great candidate for a hybrid approach.
Chris4742: Have enterprises gotten at all more comfortable with hosted messaging offerings?
Michael_Osterman: They are getting more comfortable over time. Resistance to the security and cost concerns are still there, but softening over time. However, I spoke at a conference last week where there was still a sentiment of distrust about allowing corporate data outside the org.
serverguy: What’s the latest research show about cost control? Seems like messaging, storage, archiving, etc., gets more expensive every year. Got any tips for reducing cost?
Michael_Osterman: There are a variety of things that can be done to control costs. Hosted messaging works well for smaller orgs, particularly when they evaluate the complete cost of providing messaging services. Appliance-based solutions can also be more cost effective than on-premise software. It’s important to note that labor represents about 2/3 of the cost of managing a messaging system, so anything that can be done to reduce IT involvement in the messaging management process the better.
southside: What can you recommend for a large enterprise >20k users for spam and antivirus. Is an appliance solution viable?
Michael_Osterman: Yes, appliances would defintely be viable. There are appliances from a variety of companies that provide excellent performance for large environments, including from vendors like Secure Computing, IronPort, Tumbleweed and many others.
Moderator-Linda: Pre-submitted question: I hear a lot about Twitter, Facebook and other social networking schemes that create security risks and a whole lot of messaging traffic. How will Web 2.0 affect enterprise e-mail and what should I be doing about that?
Michael_Osterman: I believe that Web 2.0 can actually reduce e-mail traffic by making collaboration tools a central repository of corporate content that will actually require fewer e-mails sent to project participants, members of a group, etc. Security risks will still be a key concern, requiring the deployment of enterprise-grade tools rather than those that are focused on consumers, as is the case today.
Western5041: I don’t understand Twitter — why is that the big thing in Web 2.0 these days?
Michael_Osterman: It’s certainly a big deal in the consumer space, but its somewhat unstructure nature makes it less valuable as a business tool. That said, Twitter is a ‘live’ application, and so has an appeal in that regard.
Western5041: So no ‘enterprise’ Twitter then? 🙂
Michael_Osterman: I think there’s a place for it, particularly on project teams where lots of real time or near real time info is exchanged. A legal team, product development team approach a launch, etc. could make very good use of something like, particularly for keeping mobile users in the loop.
serverguy: If Twitter won’t be a big deal for business, are there other Web 2.0 sites that do have business value? Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, something else? and why?
Michael_Osterman: I think that wikis, such as Socialtext, can be very useful as a replacement for some types of e-mail. If communications between group members can be consolidated into a single interface, it can be more efficient to communicate via a wiki than with e-mail. It also allows new people to be brought up to speed more quickly, while reducing e-mail traffic with lots of replies flying back and forth between group members.
RobertK: Should the same people who manage the messaging infrastructure also be the ones to handle the new Web 2.0 collaboration tools, or should it be a different group?
Michael_Osterman: Hard to say, since it depends alot on the corporate culture of the organization, the size of the organization, etc. I would probably recommend, however, that messaging and Web 2.0 should be viewed as part of a migration of messaging functionality, and so the same people should probably be involved at some level.
SpeedRacer: What collaboration suite do you consider the most complete for an enterprise (e-mail, calendaring, resource reservation, IM, video conferencing, workgroup collaboration, etc.)? Do you suscribe to a single suite or seperate best-of-breed applications?
Michael_Osterman: Personally, I use Entourage, Outlook, Outlook Web Access and Windows Mobile. I like Exchange and Outloook, but Notes/Domino and GroupWise also offer very good solutions. There are also a variety of ‘second-tier’ players, such as Zimbra, Gordano, CommuniGate, etc. that offer very nice environments.
Western5041: How can I move my staff away from e-mail and into a more collaborative application? What steps can I take to get them more interested?
Michael_Osterman: I think it depends to some extent on the corporate culture of the enterprise and the extent to which people can be motivated to share information and resources. In orgs where controlling the flow of information represents a personal value to information stakeholders, collaboration will be more difficult, for example. However, deplolying pilots of tools like wikis, IM, Web conferencing and educating users on their benefits as a way of replacing some e-mail traffic can go a long way toward making people more comfortable with these tools.
Moderator-Linda: Pre-submitted question: I’ve got to implement some messaging archiving to help our legal department with their e-mail discovery requirements. Where do I begin and what advice have you got for me?
Michael_Osterman: First and foremost, establish internal policies for retaining and deleting e-mail based on the advice of legal counsel, external experts, etc. Second, look at your archiving requirements in terms of storage requirements. Then, select a solution (on-premise software/servers, appliance or hosted service) that makes sense based on your organization’s data volume, geographic distribution of your employees, budget, etc.
southside: What do you recommend for large enterprises for an e-mail archive solution where archiving is the driver not e-discovery.
Michael_Osterman: The key is to first establish policies around archiving — what data will be retained, for how long, when it will be deleted, etc. This needs to be driven from internal legal counsel, business requirements, etc. Next, pick a solution that will allow automatic transfer of data into the archive without user intervention. This will free users from the burden of having to identify what is a business record, what is not, etc. I would also keep e-discovery in the back of my mind, however, since an archiving solution that can have an e-discovery module added later on can be very useful.
serverguy: Are there any open source e-mail archiving/management apps that are worth looking at? Or low-cost commercial ones?
Michael_Osterman: With regard to your second question, there are several good alternatives, such as those from ArcMail, Intradyn and many other companies. Hosted archiving solutions are also a fairly low cost method of implementing archiving with virtually no capital expenditure up front. I am not familiar with open source archiving solutions.
southside: Is archving the silver bullet for e-mail management and control. How do you politically set up mailbox limits when they don’t exist in a large org?
Michael_Osterman: It’s certainly a copper bullet, if not a silver one! The nice thing about an appropriately configured archiving system is that it can do away with mailbox limits by automatically moving content from live storage to archival storage when, say, a mailbox reaches 80% of its quota. This allows IT to continue to impose quotas, but users have what looks to them like a mailbox of infinite size.
MattWilson: What companies are doing the best in archiving at the moment? Message vendors or storage vendors, or someone else?
Michael_Osterman: I think it’s a combination of the two. Certainly the biggest player is Symantec with Enterprise Vault, although others are doing very well also. Doing the best job at archiving is difficult to determine, however, since it depends on an org’s needs for archiving: regulatory compliance, e-discovery, storage management, knowledge management, disaster recovery, etc.
southside: Is SharePoint a good solution to use to help with the e-mail document storage problem?
Michael_Osterman: I definitely think so. Using SharePoint or other collaborative tools can go a long way toward easing the burden on e-mail servers, particularly since they reduce attachment traffic.
Western5041: What messaging function (by either Lotus or Microsoft) would you like to see go away?
Michael_Osterman: That’s a good question. I’m not sure I’d like to see anything go away per se, although greater integration would definitely be a good thing. Also, standards-based interoperability for IM would be a great step forward, although federation has filled that gap nicely for the time being.
serverguy: I’ve heard about ways to prevent important data from being sent out via e-mail attachments — like sending out an excel spreadsheet that lists the latest sales figures. Do such things really work?
Michael_Osterman: Absolutely. There are a variety of outbound content management tools that can scan content in real time and then take action, such as popup if a suspect message is sent, etc.
Western5041: Are very many companies seriously using outbound content management or “data leakage”?
Michael_Osterman: Not seriously enough. Our research shows that most orgs have not yet deployed outbound content filtering, but they should be.
MattWilson: Why don’t people use e-mail encryption?
Michael_Osterman: I think there is still a perception that encryption is difficult to do, which past history reveals is true in many cases. However, newer solutions from a variety of vendors make encryption quite easy. We think, however, that most encryption in the future will be policy-based, automatically encrypting messages based on their content without user intervention, or automatically encrypting all messages.
southside: What is your opinion on using PGP to encrypt e-mail — is it a good standard?
Michael_Osterman: I think so. It’s robust, has been around a long time and works very nicely.
Western5041: What’s more annoying — users that send large e-mail attachments, save all of their e-mail (storage problems), or hit the ‘Reply to All’ button?
Michael_Osterman: For me, it has to be the latter. E-mail bombs are far less common than they used to be, but are still a problem.
Western5041: When can I get rid of my voicemail? 🙂
Michael_Osterman: I think voice-mail as an audio data stream will become less relevant in the future. Instead, I think alot of orgs will convert audio voice-mail to text for purposes of easier access by users and also to make it easier to archive voicemail content.
Moderator-Linda: Pre-submitted question: What are your thoughts on Microsoft Live Communications Server/Microsoft Office Communications Server — how will these new servers play with Exchange 2007?
Michael_Osterman: These are important capabilities that will extend presence and real time communications capabilities. Other products, including IBM Lotus Sametime, Jabber and many others are also important players that organizations should consider.
serverguy: How big will Microsoft’s OCS be?
Michael_Osterman: It’s certainly going to be a leading product. Sametime today is used more than OCS, but decisions about e-mail, real time communications and unified communications won’t be made in a vacuum. Exchange orgs will opt for OCS, Notes/Domino orgs will opt for Sametime, etc.
MattWilson: Do you think that we as a society are addicted to our e-mail? Why?
Michael_Osterman: Not really. I have been checking e-mail constantly for years and have never become addicted. 🙂 Seriously, though, I think many people are addicted. We did a survey some time back and found that most people check e-mail constantly while at work, most do while on vacation, at home, on weekends, etc. We can send you the results of that survey if you’d like.
MattWilson: Why do you think there are people who constantly are checking e-mail?
Michael_Osterman: I think there are two things at work here. First, many people use e-mail as their primary mode of communications, so if something important is going to reach them, it will be by e-mail. Second, there is a live aspect to e-mail that many people like — it’s real time and so somehow more relevant. I’m reminded of a baseball playoff game years ago that was halted due to rain — that game was shown opposite 60 Minutes on a Sunday night and still did better in the ratings because it was live, not taped. I think the ‘live’ nature of e-mail is very appealing to many people.
serverguy: What’s messaging going to look like in a decade — will we all be sending each other videos? Guess that happens now …
Michael_Osterman: I don’t think so. One of the real advantages of e-mail is that it is not serial. You can jump around e-mail content, scan for keywords, etc. With video and even with IM, you have to look at things serially rather than view the content the way you want.
Western5041: Other than security, what should a messaging administrator worry about?
Michael_Osterman: I think the biggest issues are handling the growth in messaging storage through archiving or some other means, getting set for e-discovery, and outbound content management to protect against the loss of IP and other sensitive info. If an organization is not managing their IM, they also need to be doing that for the reasons noted above.
MattWilson: What’s the most important thing an IT person should tell employees regarding the use of messaging?
Michael_Osterman: Two things, really. First, e-mail NEVER goes away. You can delete it, but it pesists somewhere, such as on a backup tape, in someone else’s inbox, etc. Second, consider the fact that e-mail in many cases constitutes a business record, just like a postal letter.
MattWilson: What will be the biggest story in messaging in 2007? Has it happened yet or is there a big story coming later in the year?
Michael_Osterman: I think there are two important stories for 2007. First will be the big acquisitions, such as Google acquiring Postini, Yahoo acquiring Zimbra yesterday, etc. Second will be the growing focus on outbound content management. Many orgs are headline driven, and so some big headlines of major data breaches through e-mail will help to fuel the market further.
Western5041: In a recent blog you wrote that people shouldn’t clear out their inboxes. I think that would drive me crazy. Can you explain why you think there’s value in a cluttered inbox?
Michael_Osterman: Two reasons to be a pack rat: first, e-mail is a fantastically useful database of content that anyone can add to at anytime. It allows you to go back and search for discussion threads, old content, etc. quite easily. Second, inboxes often contain businss records that will have strategic value for the enterprise. A lot of these business records must be kept for long periods because of regulatory requirements, legal precedent, etc.
southside: What is the future of BlackBerry in the enterprise?
Michael_Osterman: According to our research, BlackBerry will remain very strong for a long time. Windows Mobile is becoming more popular, but BlackBerry will still lead for some time.
JeffCaruso: Can e-mail newsletters survive in a spam-hypersensitive world? (And yes, we both have a vested interest in the answer.)
Michael_Osterman: I think they can, but it’s getting tougher to get these through to people. Authentication, reputation and other tools will definitely be required to increase receipt rates.
StarLog: Any thoughts on Outlook Messenger ?
Michael_Osterman: I have not studied Outlook Messenger specifically, and so can’t offer any definitive comments on it. I do like the fact that it supports Windows, Mac and Linux clients.
MattWilson: Since this is a chat about e-mail and messaging, what’s your favorite way for people to contact you? 😉
Michael_Osterman: E-mail. Notes on the backs of checks are also welcome!
Western5041: What’s your favorite “Internet” e-mail service?
Michael_Osterman: Probably Outlook Web Access because it allows me to integrate with my desktop.
Michael_Osterman: Thank you everyone for your great questions!
