Computhink And GWAVA Ensure E-Mail Compliance For GroupWise

Computhink, Inc., manufacturers of ViewWise, an Integrated document management and archival system used by businesses, hospitals, universities, and government offices, launched a new product as part of a joint effort with GWAVA, manufacturer of anti-virus and anti-spam software for GroupWise e-mail.

The new product called "The ViewWise E-Mail Archive Service for GWAVA," provides an unparalleled e-mail processing solution. The E-mail Archive Service is the key element in effecting multiple regulatory audit requirements including those of the Florida Sunshine Act, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 17A, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and the IRS, for e-mail retention, but that's just the beginning of the story.

Computhink fully recognized the need to automatically archive all incoming, outgoing and internal E-mails that might pose a virus and/or spam problem for companies where compliance is mandatory. Using the ViewWise archival platform, Computhink added GWAVA's expertise in stopping viruses and eliminating spam before they cause potentially devastating problems.

A Cost-Friendly Path to Compliance
With e-mail retention regulations being enforced, such as those required by federal and state agencies, it has become a matter of compliance for organizations to maintain a secure and easily searchable archive of their e-mail. Combine that with the ongoing threat of viruses and the mountains of spam e-mail that businesses receive on a daily basis, and it makes perfect sense to filter e-mails before storing them.

Computhink CEO Joe Wharram simply states, "Together, we've created one of the most comprehensive E-Mail compliance solutions to date for GroupWise. In addition to being representative of groundbreaking technology, this product offers outstanding value for companies who use it. Companies in the small-to-mid-size category who are forced into compliance shouldn't have to pay more money for less functional solutions."

How it Works
The ViewWise E-mail Archive Service processes all incoming, outgoing and internal e-mail messages, including attachments, which have been scanned and filtered through GWAVA for GroupWise and archives them into the ViewWise Integrated Document Management system. A key aspect to this solution is that in addition to archiving inbound and outbound e-mail, it is the only product, for GroupWise, that works equally as well on internally generated e-mail.

Once files are stored in a safe, compressed, encrypted, and cleansed ViewWise repository, they can be easily searched and retrieved based on both e-mail header information as well as content. In fact, the ViewWise solution enables a flexible range of comprehensive search options for identification and retrieval of e-mails that is unrivaled in the industry.

The Investment Returns
As far as ROI (return on investment) is concerned, both hard and soft ROI is associated with this product. The hard ROI rewards come from several sources.

First, the ease and speed at which a company can supply accurate information to auditors is blazingly fast. It's not just a nightmare for a records manager to pass an audit in a typical situation, it costs the company thousands of dollars in salary and resources. Now that task can be reduced to a matter of minutes, providing auditors simple access to specific information.

Second, companies will save on storage. Even though storage availability has been expanding in recent years, storage does have its limitations. In an environment where every e-mail must be saved, there comes a point where even electronic storage can become expensive, especially if some of the archived e-mails contain large attachments. By filtering out the spam, storage needs can be effectively cut in half in some instances. It's also comforting for a company to know that it isn't paying extra money to store unwanted spam.

Third, hard ROI is also realized by the anti-virus protection feature. The cost of recovery motivates companies to install anti-virus software on their servers. It's the same logic that demands the same precaution for e-mail archives subject to compliance.

Speaking of compliance, that's where Soft ROI comes into play. Not having to pay fines and "discovery costs" present the most significant opportunities to recoup and exceed the investment in email compliance. Negative experiences like "Five Wall Street brokerage firms fined a total of $8,000,000 by the SEC for not retaining e-mails" and lawsuit discovery costs such as "$6.2 million to restore and print e-mail from 93 backup tapes" have been suffered by major corporations within the last year. The value of this form of soft ROI can indeed be substantial.

A Lifetime Solution
The relationship between Computhink and GWAVA is a match made in technology heaven. ViewWise is the only Integrated Document Management solution available which runs native on Netware, SUSE LINUX and integrates with eDirectory and GroupWise. GWAVA's anti spam / virus quarantine products are designed to operate in the Novell environment with GroupWise. With GroupWise as the common denominator, both company's products were compatible from the start.

"We're proud of our accomplishment in this area," says Wharram, "I believe we've created a complete solution that companies can feel secure and confident using for a long time."