Here are six links to recent stories on court cases and e-mail:

U.S. Court Weighs E-mail Privacy, Again — Privacy – InformationWeek

This case raises the question of whether or not e-mail messages should have the same privacy as telephone calls with regards to legal situations, particularly when the e-mail is in the hands of a service provider.

Your Rights Online: An Inbox Is Not a Glove Compartment

“A federal judge rules that government can obtain access to a person’s inbox contents without any notification to the subscriber.”

What Did Cuomo Find in Intel’s Emails?

E-mail is used to build the case against Intel.

The Bear Stearns Verdict: A Blow to E-Mail Prosecutions
“It does not mean all white-collar cases will not go forward, but I do think it will cause prosecutors to come to the conclusion that e-mail evidence alone is not enough to bring a case.”

FINRA fines MetLife Securities, affiliates

Finra fines MetLife $1.2M  for poor  e-mail monitoring.

Some Courts Raise Bar on Reading Employee Email

Courts starting to side with employee privacy in relation to corporate provided e-mail

The “net-net” of these articles is that e-mail and case law is still very dynamic environment.

I had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions of Michael Atalla, Group Product Manager for Microsoft Exchange and Steve Schafer, Director of Global Information Systems for Global Crossing (an Exchange 2010 customer) about the value of upgrading to Exchange 2010 and posted the responses in a podcast on the CCS blog.

Great article on CNN about cloud computing. I love the statement at the end: “The cloud is not some fluffy ball of magic, it’s an energy-sucking and fallible machine.” Not unlike my sky blue 1966 Chevrolet pickup sitting in the garage that I swear I am going to get back on the road someday…

Social distancing is a strategy that the federal government has included in the response plans for an H1N1 epidemic. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services states in its Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and Respond to the 2009 – 2010 Influenza Season:

“If severity increases, public health officials may recommend a variety of methods for increasing the physical distance between people (called social distancing) to reduce the spread of disease, such as school dismissal, child care program closure, canceling large community gatherings, canceling large business-related meetings, spacing workers farther apart in the workplace, canceling non-essential travel, and recommending work-from-home strategies for workers that can conduct their business remotely.”

The guidance also states:

• “Explore whether you can establish policies and practices, such as flexible worksites (e.g., telecommuting) and flexible work hours (e.g., staggered shifts), when possible, to increase the physical distance among employees and between employees and others if local public health authorities recommend the use of social distancing strategies. Ensure that you have the information technology and infrastructure needed to support multiple workers who may be able to work from home.

• Identify essential business functions, essential jobs or roles, and critical elements within your supply chains (e.g., raw materials, suppliers, subcontractor services/products, and logistics) required to maintain business operations. Plan for how your business will operate if there is increasing absenteeism or these supply chains are interrupted.
• Set up authorities, triggers, and procedures for activating and terminating the company’s response plan, altering business operations (e.g., possibly changing or closing operations in affected areas), and transferring business knowledge to key employees. Work closely with your local health officials to identify these triggers.

• Plan to minimize exposure to fellow employees or the public if public health officials call for social distancing.

• Establish a process to communicate information to workers and business partners on your 2009 H1N1 influenza response plans and latest 2009 H1N1 influenza information. Anticipate employee fear, anxiety, rumors, and misinformation, and plan communications accordingly.”

The impact on the business can be significant if the enterprise has not planned ahead. Key communication and collaboration tools (e.g. e-mail, instant messaging, web conferencing, and team workspaces) should be identified and evaluated for capabilities to help an enterprise to continue to function in the event that facilities are closed and large numbers of employees in certain geographic areas are ill or have to work remotely.

I blogged yesterday on the CCS blog about “Zimbra for Sale?”. The blog lists several vendors in the e-mail / collaboration market and my thoughts on the potential for them to acquire Zimbra. Of all of them, I think Adobe is one of the most interesting to watch, at the moment.

Adobe’s strengths have been the creation and packaging of content. As Adobe looks to grow leveraging its strengths, expanding into communication and collaboration is a logical direction. But Adobe is doing it with a twist – a focus on SaaS (as evidenced by their recent acquisition of Omniture), while still providing on-premise capabilities. Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro is a great example. Adobe’s strategy plays well to what most enterprises are interested in – a hybrid model of SaaS and on-premise for their communication and collaboration technologies that gives them control over where the data sits.

If Adobe does add e-mail at some point, it will be interesting to see if they can make headway against Microsoft and IBM. Potentially, they could capture a market position as the alternative to Microsoft and IBM for the enterprise for communication and collaboration technology.

I am on the road this week, but wrote a quick blog about a new approach to e-mail task management. E-mail task management has been anemic over the years – really just a carry over from paper planners – although I think Novell GroupWise has the most flexible of the various e-mail task management features in market. The approach being used by Liaise is very interesting.

I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer for SearchCIO.com, about how the Boston Mayoral Race Highlights the Need for E-mail Retention Policy.

My entry today on the Burton Group CCS blog – How to Tell When Your Vendor is Just Not That Into You.

For those of you looking for something a little lighter to read on Fridays, especially before a holiday weekend, I recommend Scott Adam’s blog. Occasionally, he has some really creative technology insights, like the one on calendaring I referred to in my CCS blog a few months back. Mr Adam’s blog is worth reading and a lot of fun.

One of my current research topics is enterprise e-mail archiving, with a particular emphasis on the integrated archiving coming in near future
releases of Exchange 2010 and Notes 8.5.1. Interestingly, many organizations seem to believe that backups are enough and can be a defacto archive as needed. My CCS blog today is E-mail: Archive vs. Backup.