For More Than One Third of European Respondents, File Archiving at Forefront of Future Investments

BakBone Software revealed the findings of a recent survey of 300 IT decision-makers from across France, Germany and the UK.

To the question: "Does your organisation agree with market predictions that organisations will invest more in file archiving than email archiving in the next twelve months?", these end users revealed that they are over three times more likely to invest in file archiving in this time frame. This response confirms the need for an effective solution to manage the growing volumes of unstructured data in file systems. This result is also an indication of the increasing numbers of internal, national and international data retention regulations.
 
The key findings of the survey are:

• In the three countries  - 66% of respondents agreed that file archiving was at the forefront of future investments
• Germany and France had similar results with 72% and 79% of respondents respectively likely to invest more in file archiving
• In the UK, although the number of respondents likely to invest more in email archiving was higher than in the other two countries (35%), a high percentage of companies (48%) still plan to invest more in file archiving
• Company size does not seem to affect the choice, with 67% of organisations with 1,000-3,000 employees and 66% of those with over 3,000 employees agreeing than file archiving was higher on the investment priority list than email archiving
• Interestingly, larger German and French companies were slightly less likely to spend on file archiving than those in the 1,000-3,000 bracket, while in the UK the percentage of end users looking to deploy file archiving was higher in the over 3,000 employees category (54% compared to 42%)
• In Germany and France, the manufacturing sector was the one most likely to choose file archiving in the next twelve months (92%) whereas in the UK, it was the financial industry (60%)
• In France, 92% of companies in retail, distribution and transport also agreed that file archiving is a higher priority, with Germany following behind at 72% and the UK with 44%

"Our customers are telling us that they are planning to invest more resources in file archiving than email archiving in the next twelve months. The results of our survey support this finding," said Adrian Moir, technical director EMEA at BakBone Software. "Increasingly stringent regulations mean that all companies are under more pressure than ever before to put in place an effective archiving solution for the growing volume of unstructured data in place. Many companies have already invested in an email archiving product and the next logical step is to expand the installation to address the need to archive and manage unstructured file data."
 
Solutions such as MailMeter File Archiver by BakBone's partner Waterford Technologies, allow IT administrators to improve the efficiency of their storage infrastructures while facilitating data retention compliance and reducing management complexity and overhead, ultimately lowering overall storage costs. MailMeter File Archiver gives organisations the ability to benefit from a tiered storage strategy that encompasses policy-based storage automation, search and audit management.
 
The survey was commissioned by BakBone and carried out by Vanson Bourne earlier this year amongst 300 IT decision makers in the UK, Germany and France.