Mailbox storage: If you really don't like your users... give them what they ask for...

Mailbox storage is always been a sore spot with me.  Regardless of how often you remind users to manage their mailbox, they want to hold on to almost everything.   But, I get this... I often refer back to email conversations that I had 2 or 3 years ago.  Email is an extension of my brain/memory.

In my user community, we have users that regularly receive 1.0GB of email per month.  PPTs, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, newsfeeds, you name it, they get it.  And, they keep it.

Years ago, our users complained loudly that they did not like having mailbox storage limits.  Management heard their screams and told us to raise the storage limits so we adopted Enterprise Vault and essentially give our users a "bottomless mailbox."   Vault comes through and archives anything older than 30 days. 

Normally, they don't let me anywhere near end users because I don't have a filter.... but over the past 2 years I have spoken to a lot of our user community.  And, they have resoundingly said "we hate Enterprise Vault" and "give us a larger mailbox and then just let *us* decide when we delete something or if we keep it."

So, our newest email platform now provides each user with a 2GB mailbox and a 10GB personal archive.  Within 6 months, some of our users had already exceeded these limits and more exceed them every day. 

And, you guessed it...  they want a way for "the vault to archive their older stuff".

:-)