Microsoft experiments with managed e-mail

Employee Managed Mailbox' would give companies more control over e-mail in order to better meet regulatory requirements and e-discovery laws

Microsoft is experimenting with a potential product that would give companies more control over the electronic messages their staff exchange in order to better meet regulatory requirements and e-discovery laws.

The product, which has been informally dubbed Employee Managed Mailbox (EMM), is being used internally at Microsoft and may eventually turn into a commercial offering, according to Joel Freedman, chief financial officer at Microsoft Canada.

"Instead of e-mail that would be utilizing the hard drive, you'd have e-mail that gets managed by a server," he said, adding that a server-based product could help companies do a better job of adhering to compliance-related policies. "You could have a one-month, one-year, or three-year limit on retention [of an e-mail message], for example."

Freedman suggested EMM could become a direct way for Microsoft to assist corporations who are struggling to keep up with accounting, privacy, and other rules that increasingly govern the way they handle information.

Source- infoworld