Gartner recently published a report on when to use Microsoft’s native capabilities for archiving and eDiscovery. The report is a must read for I&O leaders and compliance professionals that need to decide whether the archiving and eDiscovery offerings of Microsoft suit their environment.
The report presents an inventory of key challenges like the increasing need to involve other, non-Microsoft-specific content in the eDiscovery process. It points out the gaps like the retention of non-Microsoft data and eDiscovery search capabilities.
The analyst suggests to use Microsoft for end-user-directed archiving, records management and the access and retrieval of archived content. For eDiscovery areas like legal hold management, predictive analytics and document review, the analyst recommends to couple Microsoft's capabilities with a third party software vendor like ZyLAB.
“Microsoft's E-Discovery Offering Is Immature”
According to Gartner, “the approach that Microsoft often takes to related markets — such as collaboration, where being "good enough" might be acceptable — will not be suitable for supporting business processes, including complex eDiscovery requirements and enabling enterprises to be successful in the face of litigation, audit or investigation.”
The analysts concludes "Microsoft's E-Discovery Offering is Immature" and lists several areas for improvement for eDiscovery by Microsoft. The analyst reports on expressed concerns about the inconsistent search results using Microsoft's eDiscovery offerings and the inability to access certain contents stores. In addition, the fact that file content has to be ingested into SharePoint to enable analytics, search and preservation is noted as serious factor for improvement. The report concludes that compared to some eDiscovery independent software vendors, Early Case Assessment (ECA) and eDiscovery workflows in O365 can be challenging.
Recommendations
Gartner recommends to use Microsoft Exchange Online and Office 365 archiving only when litigation and governance event history, case volume, and scope are low. Highly regulated global enterprises are advised to couple Microsoft's capabilities with a best-of-breed approach with third-party Independent Software Vendors (ISV) like ZyLAB, in areas such as legal hold management, predictive analytics and document review for e-discovery.
ZyLAB has always partnered with Microsoft to add additional functionality and value to Microsoft Exchange Online and Office 365 to create a solid and complete eDiscovery process.
Read more on the best approach for your investigation and review needs when you have your data in Microsoft Office 365 in our eBook “eDiscovery with ZyLAB and MS O365” or contact me for a complimentary ticket to The Knowledge Group webinar “Completing your O365 installation with ZyLAB’s ONE eDiscovery” on May 16.
