E-mail management  specialist Mimecast has upgraded its flagship Unified Email Management platform to provide the advanced features and capabilities of on-premise email solutions using the cost-effective SaaS delivery model.

New functionality addresses increasing industry regulation and concern around data retention with the introduction of Litigation Hold, eDiscovery Case Management and Metadata Removal. In addition, new archiving, mailbox and data protection features allow companies to control their inboxes while preventing data leaks.
Mimecast is the first vendor to bridge the gap between SaaS e-mail archiving and the sophistication of on-premise solutions through the introduction of MSE (Mimecast Services for Exchange). This is a lightweight software component that binds Exchange directly with the Mimecast SaaS environment.
Neil Murray, CTO at Mimecast, says: "Most organisations are demanding more out of their email management software. This is largely due to the need to integrate email archives directly with Exchange environments for compliance and mailbox management. Mimecast focuses on ensuring that by moving to SaaS, IT managers will not have to give up sophistication of applications or control."
Mimecast also introduced a range of new capabilities to its Unified Email Management platform such as granular Litigation Hold, e-Discovery Case Management  and Message Retention.
Litigation Hold prevents emails that relate to any current or anticipated legal action from being deleted while E-discovery Case Management allows multiple searches to be aggregated to provide a complete, legally admissible log of each case. Metadata Removal helps prevent information being accidentally or intentionally leaked by stripping background data such as 'tracked changes' or 'previously inserted comments' out of attached documents before the mail is allowed outside the firewall.
"Law firms and corporate law department must content with many related compliance issues, including the storage and discovery of email evidence, review of large personal storage files (PST) belonging to individual users, documenting email keyword search queries and maintaining and authenticating proper chains of custody.  Having Mimecast running at the client site would make the process of information gathering quicker, easier and more effective in the court room," says Gerrie van Gaalen of technology specialist law firm, Van Gaalen Attorneys.
Mimecast also announced several new features to improve the user experience. Folder-based replication enables users to retain a consistent view of their email whether accessing it direct through the server or through Mimecast webmail. Flexible email stubbing enables companies to set up policies that facilitate greater control of mailbox size. It leaves a link in a user¹s inbox yet the full email or attachment remains in the cloud until the user needs to access it. The addition of folder-based retention provides the central enforcement of policies that pinpoint the types and categories of information and determines where and for how long the information is maintained. Additionally, users can apply granular corporate policy based around retention folders and associated retention periods.
Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, says: "According to our research, eighty percent of electronic discovery events involve e-mails and messaging applications.  When compared to other business productivity software, messaging is expected to have the greatest impact on server and storage spending over the next twenty-four months. The recent additions to Mimecast¹s portfolio directly address these challenges leading to benefits that are generally only available via on-premise e-mail management offerings."