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Key Industry Commentators & Analysts Take Centre Stage at Message ’05
July 27, 2005;
If you will be in London between 26 and 27 October then you may consider dropping by to this conference. Free access is also possible...

Including Mike Short, VP of research at O2 and Chairman of the Mobile Data Association, Nick Kingsbury, Global Sector Head, software at 3i, Keith Little, IT Director, BBC and Professor Jim Norton e-business and e-government adviser for the IoD …

Message’05, (26-27 October Business Design Centre, London), has secured key industry commentators and senior analysts to lead a series of keynotes and 30 roundtables. The sessions are designed to help organisations deploy, manage, extend and secure their corporate communications – email, instant messaging and mobile messaging – whilst keeping them effective and compliant. Thanks to exploding mail volumes, the rise of IM and messaging on the move, security threats and new regulations, messaging has become one of the biggest challenges facing every organisation.

The event focuses on issues facing public and private sector companies with 500+ employees. For the full, up-to-date event programme, further information about the keynotes and to register for the roundtables, please visit www.message05.co.uk.

Confirmed Speakers include:

• Mike Short, VP of research at O2 and Chairman of the Mobile Data Association

• Nick Kingsbury, Global Sector Head, software, 3i

• Professor Jim Norton e-business and e-government adviser, Institute of Directors

• Keith Little, IT Director, BBC

• Janet Day, IT Director, top 15 City of London law firm Berwin, Leighton & Paisner

• Andy Mulholland, Global CTO, CapGemini

• Steve Anderson, IT Partner at management consultants Davis Langdon

• Mike Usher, Group Security Advisor, Prudential Plc

• Eric Allman, CTO, Sendmail

• Dr Monica Seeley, Mesmo Consultancy

• Graham Titterington, Principal Analyst, Ovum

• Chris Harris-Jones, Research Director, Ovum

• Angela Ashenden, Senior Analyst, Ovum

• Michael Osterman President of US analyst firm Osterman Research

Messaging - A Hot Topic On Today’s Business Agenda:

Offering industry insight into a number of the key topics being covered in the roundtables, some of the chair people shared their views on where the enterprise messaging market is heading and the biggest issues it faces.

• “Very few organisations have ever trained their staff in how to use e-mail and messaging effectively. Often, in the absence of good guidance, poor practice has developed with excessive courtesy copies and so on leading to the infamous e-mail overload. Companies need to take stock, unlearn the poor practices and put in place sensible guidance and training. ” Professor Jim Norton e-business and e-government adviser, Institute of Directors

• “Increasingly IM and email are becoming de facto methods of communication in the way that business is conducted, however regulators still regard them as being physical documents. As such, we have to understand that an email is the same as a letter or a contract. Archiving and storage, therefore, is going to be a critical consideration for the financial industry with the ability to easily retrieve ‘contractual’ emails in the long-term, a challenge which pension providers in particular will face.“ Mike Usher, Group Security Advisor, Prudential Plc

• “Instant messaging whilst being a useful tool is still very vulnerable to the lack of audit trail capability, there are also issues about roaming access which makes this complex. I do not see at present that IM will overtake email. If it does then the problems we face with email management and storage at present will fade into insignificance!” Janet Day, IT Director of top 15 City of London law firm Berwin, Leighton & Paisner

• “IM needs to have the same rigour applied to the control of it as has been conducted over email, with particular attention being paid to areas such as the subscription to specific IM systems and the storage and archiving of messages. On trading floors, for example, traders are using it to communicate with one another, but without any means to store the communications, breech of regulations is inevitable. “ Mike Usher, Group Security Advisor, Prudential Plc

Compliance challenges:

• “I think that the financial risks of not being compliant are still far in excess of the costs of the technology so companies will generally play safe.” Steve Anderson, IT Partner at management consultants Davis Langdon

• “In reality there is no choice about complying - although the regulations being non-standardised across Europe mean that it would be fairly easy to comply in one country and fail to comply in its neighbour - a nightmare for someone managing that risk.” Janet Day, IT Director of top 15 City of London law firm Berwin, Leighton & Paisner

Message'05 is sponsored by Microsoft, 02, Sendmail, Mirapoint, New Voice Media, Argelcom, Symantec, Postini, Blackspider and Storagetek and Orange and is supported by Ovum, eema and the Jericho Forum.

Message’05 takes place 26-27 October 2005 at The Gallery, Business Design Centre in Central London. For further information, visit www.message05.co.uk.

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