But it may be the "save" key rather than the "delete" key that poses the biggest problems. E-mail archives often act as a handy filing system, until you have to find a piece of information buried in a particular message. Bellevue, Washington-based Applied Discovery Inc. is one of several companies (others include Fios, Electronic Evidence Discovery, and Tumbleweed) that help clients find the needle in the E-mail haystack. The company categorizes, manages, searches, and reviews electronic data (E-mail, documents, and other "unstructured" data) from clients via a secure online "reading room."

Applied Discovery is helping Enron organize its electronic files, including E-mail, into a central, searchable repository for the plethora of lawyers and regulatory bodies looking to build their cases. "This way, Enron has to process the information only once," says Applied Discovery CEO Michael Weaver. A customer typically ends up paying about 20 cents per page for information managed this way, as opposed to $1.30 for the traditional method of coding and scanning.

Laurel, Delaware-based KVS Inc., which sells an E-mail search agent for Microsoft Exchange, says calls from investment houses and energy companies have kept its phone "ringing off the hook" in recent months — presumably the one form of non-E-mail contact the company embraces.

Instant Success
Even as companies grapple with the billions of E-mail messages they generate each year, a new form of communication is competing for corporate mindshare and dollars. Instant messaging, which began as an enhanced way for consumers to chat on AOL, has taken hold in the business world at an astounding pace: Ferris Research estimates there are 100 million users worldwide. Jupiter Media Metrix estimates that 16.9 million U.S. business users were IM'ing, as it's known, since this past April. More significant than the actual number is the growth: Dozens of companies now offer IM software and services, and analysts expect IM to be as ubiquitous as E-mail within a few years.

IM comprises several functions, but the two most useful are the ability to have a real-time E-mail conversation in a pop-up window and to see at a glance who else is "present"; that is, at their PC and available to IM.

IM often comes into companies through the back door, as savvy employees simply download free software from AOL or Yahoo. But the many private companies vying to become leaders in IM argue that the bare-bones IM functionality that can be plucked from the Internet for free poses major security and privacy risks, and doesn't include a host of administrative capabilities essential to managing the growing volume of IM content. As IM becomes a popular way both for employees to chat and for companies to talk to customers and suppliers, these purveyors argue that today's freebie will ultimately exact a high price. "But the free versions are actually good for us," says Ryan Alexander, president and COO of Omnipod Inc., which sells a suite of IM and file-sharing software, "because the security concerns prompt companies to suspend its use, but employees balk, so companies decide to buy products that meet their needs."

Alexander says IM will soon become a commodity, so he and other newer vendors are in a race to bundle it with other services and capabilities. Given that competitors include Microsoft and Lotus, smaller firms have plenty of motivation to innovate.

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