New technologies, new RIM challenges.

• Position: In focus: a message from the editor

Isn't technology grand? Despite the challenges, costs, and occasional hiccups, consider where we might be without it.

This issue of The Information Management Journal takes a look at a few new technologies, products, and trends. You may have heard of content-addressed storage and active archiving, but in her article "Innovations in Information Management Technologies," Julie Gable, CRM, CDIA, FM, examines three products that have huge records management implications: EMC's Centera Compliance Edition, Princeton Softech's Active Archiving Solutions, and Microsoft's Sharepoint Portal Server version 2.0. Each represents a new way of thinking about managing electronic records.

In his article "The Digital Tsunami: A Perspective on Data Storage" Joe Straub discusses the dramatic increases in data storage that will be necessary in the near future and identifies existing and emerging data storage technologies. To meet rapidly multiplying data storage demands, Straub says, organizations will need to find technologies that can increase today's storage offerings tenfold in the next few years. If you have not considered what this might mean to your organization, now is the time to do so.

Something else to consider, given the proliferation of e-mail and the growing use of instant messaging, are the legal implications of using e-mail, voice mail, and instant messages in the workplace. John Montana, J.D., discusses these communication media from a legal perspective--are they or aren't they legally records?--in "E-mail, Voice Mail, and Instant Messaging: A Legal Perspective." Montana's article provides examples of messaging restrictions and guidelines in the United States and worldwide and examines considerations for...