One in four companies believes that more than 20% of their e-mail traffic is non-work-related, according to a new survey commissioned by Hitachi Data Systems.
The survey also uncovered wide variations between each of the 14 EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) countries surveyed, with workers in some countries sending up to 10 times more personal e-mails than their peers in other countries:
Proportion of companies where more than one in five e-mails is non-work-related (results ranked by country):
1. South Africa 74%
2. Israel 67%
3. Netherlands 54%
4. Austria 47%
5. UK 32%
6. Switzerland 26%
7. Germany 23%
8. Spain 22%
9. Norway 20%
10. Denmark 12%
11. Sweden 11%
12. Belgium 9%
13. Italy 9%
14. France 7%
EMEA average: 25%
Aside from the impact on productivity, the survey highlights the cost and technology implications of storing non-work-related e-mail messages. With new regulations encouraging companies to archive all e-mail messages for at least three years, personal e-mail traffic places an additional strain on data storage systems. Analysts at IDC already forecast that the total number of e-mails sent daily worldwide is growing from 9.7 billion in 2000 to 35 billion in 2005.
Yet despite this, the research suggests that most companies are failing to address the problem of archiving growing volumes of e-mail data.
"Since most companies are reluctant to place draconian e-mail restrictions on their staff, they need to look at ways of storing e-mail content more efficiently," says Fanie van Rensburg, MD of local HDS distributor, Shoden Data Systems." With new e-mail archival regulations on the way, companies that fail to do this are likely to find themselves with a very large storage bill."
Across the region, three-quarters of IT directors questioned agreed that e-mails take up more than 5% of their companies' entire data storage capacity. However, a quarter of respondents reported that more than 20% of their stored data was from e-mail messages, while one in ten put the figure even higher, at up to 40%.
Proportion of companies where more than 10% of storage capacity is dedicated to e-mail (results ranked by country):
1. Belgium 89%
2. South Africa/Denmark 63%
3. Israel 57%
4. Italy 56%
5. Sweden 55%
6. UK 53%
7. France 53%
8. Norway 49%
9. Switzerland 37%
10. Austria 34%
11. Germany 30%
12. Spain 27%
13. Netherlands 23%
EMEA average: 47%
"This research displays the impact of e-mail storage - how it takes up large amounts of expensive IT resources and places a growing strain on IT directors everywhere," concludes Van Rensburg.
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With offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Shoden Data Systems (Pty) Ltd is the sole distributor for Hitachi Data Systems in SA. In addition, Shoden Data Systems is the sole distributor of INRANGE Technologies Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of channel extenders, fibre channel and ESCON/FICON directors. Shoden Data Systems is also a Veritas Premier Partner, providing integrated, managed, best-of-breed storage area network solutions to the marketplace, as well as a distributor of VMware, virtual machine software for Intel-based systems. Based on more than 200 collective years of experience in the service, support and marketing of Hitachi products, Shoden Data Systems uses its intellectual capital and industry leading products to provide customers with total solutions in the storage, enterprise servers and connectivity arenas. The following offerings are available:
1. Storage - the HDS Freedom storage range, including Lightning 9900 and 9500.
2. Connectivity - the Inrange FC/9000 Fibre Channel/ FICON Director, ESCON Directors and Channel Extenders.
3. Servers - Fujitsu Siemens PrimePower range of servers.
Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources to develop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology with the performance, availability and scalability to maximise customers' ROI and minimise their risk. By focusing on the customer's perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, and services from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy our customers' business needs.
With 2 700 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct and indirect channels in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries. Its customers include more than 50% of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.eu.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd
Hitachi, Ltd (NYSE: HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 340 000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2002 (ended 31 March 2003) consolidated sales totalled 8 191.7 billion yen ($68.3 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.hitachi.com.
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