Messaging predictions for 2004

It’s that time of year when many of us like to do a little prognosticating about what we’ll see in the year ahead. Here’s my chance to do a little forecasting about what will happen to the messaging world in 2004.

* Spam will continue to be a problem for many enterprises, but the problem will wane from a practical perspective for most enterprises because of the widespread deployment of good spam-blocking tools. To be sure, enterprise e-mail systems, as well as those of Internet service providers, will continue to handle a deluge of spam, but most end users will be relatively insulated from this onslaught. Consequently, the problems with spam will continue to be faced more by IT staff than by end users.

* I believe 2004 will be the year in which e-mail archiving takes on new significance in many enterprises. Three of the primary reasons to archive are a) to slow the growth in storage requirements and more effectively manage messaging systems, b) to meet government regulatory requirements, and c) to protect the enterprise in the event of legal action. While financial services firms are already fairly heavy users of archiving systems, enterprises in many other industries will begin to see the importance of archiving, particularly the healthcare industry due primarily to HIPAA requirements.

* I believe that 2004 will see a major consolidation of vendors in the spam-blocking market, given that there are well over 120 vendors of these products now. The vendors with the best technology will get acquired by other vendors seeking to expand their array of tools to protect messaging systems from a holistic perspective.

* Instant messaging will see a major uptick in growth, fueled by an improving economy and the ability of IT departments to garner budgets to implement truly enterprise-grade systems.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on these predictions. Please drop me a line at mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com