Mimosa to Move Beyond Mail

Mimosa Systems hopes to turn its email archiving system into a document management platform, and it's taken the first steps toward that mission in its latest release.

Mimosa's NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server 2.0 has two new optional add-on packages, one called eDiscovery for in-depth searching of email by lawyers, and another dubbed Compliance Storage Option that runs on external storage gear -- starting with EMC's Centera content addressed storage (CAS) system.

The new options are further proof, say Mimosa execs, that NearPoint's way of treating Exchange metadata makes it good not just for archiving and indexing email but for full-fledged document management, which the company hopes to release within 6 to 9 months.

According to CEO T.M. Ravi, NearPoint's ability to "get it all" through transaction-based archiving of metadata and the addition of CDP enabled the new workflow and collaboration features in eDiscovery. "We capture the full content... the full context of email," he says. So instead of producing an email message alone in court, lawyers can offer a list of people who accessed the email, when they did so, and the users' associated messages.

One customer, law firm Kirton & McConkie of Salt Lake City, seems pleased with NearPoint's new modules. "[W]e can now empower our internal auditors to easily and quickly conduct granular searches on their own, alleviating the burden on our IT staff while preserving individuals' privacy," said Joel Woodall, network administrator, in a prepared statement. Before adopting NearPoint, Woodall says, mailbox sizes, lengthening backup windows, and projected recovery time extensions were burdening his group. By adding PST file elimination and workflow functions, Mimosa has changed that profile and reduced Exchange storage by 84 percent, he says.According to Ravi, it's all down to Mimosa's policy-enabled repository. And while marketese is surely at work here, at least one analyst agrees that the quality of Mimosa's metadata helps build their case. "They're not layering other stuff on," says Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. "You can add modules, but the metadata is all there already."

On the downside, a lot of other vendors, many of the biggest in the business, are making similar claims to Mimosa's. In the latest Byte and Switch Insider report, for instance, products from over 28 vendors are profiled, including ones from CA, EMC, HP, IBM, Symantec, and Zantaz. Some of these claim to have more features than Mimosa. (See Insider: Email Archiving Hits Bottom.)

What's more, most of the email archiving vendors continue to struggle against the fact that they just don't do it all. Partnerships with hardware vendors are thus a key trend. HDS, for example, has partnered with a range of data classification and search software vendors, and CA has plans to OEM Arkivio's platform for its archiving solution. (See Archiving's Active Alliances.)

None of this deters Ravi, who continues to project profitability for his company in 2007. The company, founded in 2003, now has roughly 90 employees and 80 customers, he says. And last year's funding infusion should will hold through next year. (See Mimosa Expands Data Management .) So while Mimosa clearly faces a tough challenge, it appears to have the qualities to make it part of the race.

NearPoint 2.0 and its options are presently available. The base NearPoint package starts at $9,995 for 100 mailboxes; option costs $4,000 apiece for 100 mailboxes.Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch