Microsoft is hooking up with IBM for the first time to help large companies handle an increasingly worrisome problem: e-mail archiving for e-discovery, legal and audit reasons.
Starting Oct. 19, Microsoft and its channel partners are to begin recommending a new IBM e-mail archiving product to enterprise customers through an extensive business partner program that will be based on hardware, software and services.
The package includes Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 software and a slew of IBM server and storage hardware, software and services. The IBM and Microsoft software is pre-loaded and pre-tested as part of the package delivery.
The IBM e-mail archiving and storage product will be available through IBM Business Partners and is designed to enable companies to retain e-mail for corporate governance and legal discovery purposes.
It is also designed to address immediate and future challenges with growing e-mail systems, improve performance and optimize storage investments, reduce backup/restore times, and allow for faster server consolidation and upgrades.
The IBM/Microsoft package incorporates tiered archiving storage capability for attached tape storage, supporting lower costs and provides options for data encryption capabilities for added security.
This represents the first storage development partnership between Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., and IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., IBM technology strategist Gordon Arnold told eWEEK.
Read the full story on eWeek: Microsoft, IBM Hook Up for E-Mail Archiving