Symantec’s acquisition of LiveOffice actually reveals a growing trend in the business world. Companies used to store their documents in filing cabinets. These documents are of importance as they provide information of past activities. Without them there may be no basis or explanation why a company took a particular course of action on a particular matter or why the company is currently engaged in a present business. Documents record a company’s history and stay there even if key employees are gone.

Among the more important documents are letters which provide revealing information and it’s usually through letters the certain actions are initiated. With the advent of the internet and electronic data storage what used to be referred to as documents are now simply known as data and letters can now be called communication.

What has not changed though is the importance of these documents/data. The mass use of emails while making communication much faster and easier brings with it another issue-there is so much email going back and forth among companies or businesses and there is so much email going on even within a company. How do you deal with all this? In the olden days you filed all the letters or documents in a filing cabinet. These can be accessed by authorized company employees at any time.

Now there is a need to file or archive too these emails and other electronic documents. That’s where companies like LiveOffice have come into the picture. Simply from a management point of view these communications must be properly filed and stored. Leaving all of them all over the place makes them difficult to follow. There are also laws governing that certain companies must have archives of their electronic data.

Emails can also make and unmake careers of employees, hence its importance. They must be properly stored and protected. Another area of consideration is how can your company search fora  particular information if it is not properly archived?

So while things may have gone electronic, an organized and holistic approach to archiving is still very much needed. More companies will realize the need for electronic data archiving.