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Email is ubiquitous. No matter where you look, people are reading their email; whether at an Internet kiosk at an airport, on a laptop in an Internet café or on their smart phones in the middle of church. As a result of the growing reliance upon email, people have started to use email applications as the 21st century filing cabinet where they document their activities, store files and important communications and conduct business. At the same time, users are being overwhelmed with the amount of email they receive each day, making it difficult to effectively extract data stored in email messages. In addition, if email stops working, business for many people and their organizations comes to a halt as IT teams scramble to address the problem.

When it comes to today's information age, there has never been a more business-critical communications tool than email. Like the manila folders of old, the virtual folders have become gold mines of information. Unfortunately, while the manila folders only caused paper cuts, when mishandled, the virtual folders can create a number of challenges for organizations.

The key to understanding the importance of email archiving is to understand the difference between archiving and backing-up. While most companies back-up their data to a tape drive or other media, the process of restoring, searching and using the information can be time consuming and difficult. Archiving differs in that it allows organizations to store information in such a way that email can quickly be searched, restored and used for a competitive advantage.