Let's talk business

Urgent need to amend your email signatures

On January 1 the new UK Companies Regulations came into force. The regulations apply to all UK limited companies and limited partnerships with websites and that use e-mail to communicate with customers.

The regulations mean that every UK company now has to list its company registration number, VAT number, place of registration and registered office address in legible characters on its website. The regulation even says that this information must also appear in e-mails and online order forms.

This has always been a requirement on business letterheads but has now been extended to cover websites, electronic order forms and electronic documents including email. Some of this was already implied in the 2002 E-commerce Regulations Act, but this new legislation clarifies it.

Directors of companies that fail to comply face a fine.

You can read the full details of the regulation here (warning - written in legal jargon).

The regulation is as a result of a European law, the First Company Law Amendment Directive, which had to be implemented by the end of 2006. This probably means that companies in all other EU member countries have to do the same thing, although sometimes countries miss the deadlines for implementing EU law.

Later we'll post some quick updates about how to ensure your email signatures are compliant if you are using WorkgroupMail, OfficeTalk or MailDisclaimer.

 

Technorati tags: small business, SME, SMB, OMB, email

Third of large firms admit their email systems are 'complete chaos'

More than a third of large British companies admit their email management systems are in "complete chaos". A similar number of firms either have no policy or do not know what their policy is on archiving. Similarly, a third do not have plans or procedures for dealing with compliance issues and the need to keep historical records.

Shockingly just 27% archived emails outside of Outlook and 16% don't care about the environment and archive email by printing paper copies!

Two thirds (70%) of organisations admit that content created by employees who have left is not archived appropriately. This is something that we've made really easy in OfficeTalk. Just go into Supervisor mode to users and right click on the user you want to archive. All of their interactions with contacts will still be easily available in searches or in history tabs.

The survey of large companies was carried out by enterprise content management association AIIM.

I suspect a survey of small and medium size businesses and organisations would reveal figures that are even worse. Not only is it essential that you archive your email but you also need to back it up.

Dylan Ambrust, editor of PCW, says that 40% of small to medium size businesses don't back up their data at all. But that's not the alarming figure. The one that you need to take notice of that 60% of businesses that lose data close down within six months and 72% that suffer major data loss cease to exist two years after the event.

If you use WorkgroupMail you should ensure that you've enabled email archiving and you are also taking backups of your data.

tags: email, SME, SMB, small+business

VNU covers WorkgroupMail

VNUnet journalist Clement James has written a news story about the release of WorkgroupMail 8.1 to "take on Microsoft in the SME space."

UPDATE: In PC Magazine

tags: WorkgroupMail, email, messaging, email+server, small+business, SMB, SME

WorkgroupMail 8.1 out now

Just a quick note to let you know that the latest version of our small and medium size business / organization email server WorkgroupMail 8.1 is now out. You can check out the news release here. And if you like it please don't forget to Digg it to help us spread the word. Thanks.

tags: WorkgroupMail, email

IT Week podcast on employee email monitoring

This week's IT Week podcast (June 7) features advice from James Murray on employee email monitoring. Don't know what he says as I haven't had chance to listen yet but have popped it on my MP3 to listen to later.

Technorati : IT Week, e-mail, email, podcast

Don't take risks with your World Cup emails

Today we've joined in the World Cup fever to issue a warning about the risk to small and medium size businesses if employees circulate video clips of their favourite World Cup moments. Yes it's a shameless bit of self-promotion (although not as tacky as some companies are being!) but has a serious point.

As our warning says top corporate lawyers Baker & McKenzie are already preempting any potential copyright violations by sending warning letters to websites like Boing Boing. And just in case you think your emails will be safe and won't come to wider attention just read this news story about what happened when one of Baker & Mckenzie's own lawyers sent a saucy email.

We've used Del.icio.us to bookmark and share some useful, relevant and helpful web sites related to this topic. You can see our links here or why not subscribe to the RSS feed so you'll know when we update the list.

Of course from our self-promotion point of view the most important link is to WorkgroupMail, our email server for small and medium size businesses which is what enables you to set up filters and block those pesky attachments that might get you into trouble.

This post shows how easy it is to use WorkgroupMail to filter video file attachments.

Technorati : SMB, SME, Softalk, WorkgroupMail, e-mail, email, email filters, email server, small business

Did you know: creating a content filter to block attachments

You can use WorkgroupMail to create a content filter to block certain types of attachment, or alternatively to allow certain types of attachment. For example this is how you block video file attachments:

1. In WorkgroupMail open Administrator and double click on Content Filtering.
2. Click on add to create a new rule.
3. Tick the boxes for 'Check incoming messages' and 'Check outgoing messages'. Click next.
4. Tick the box for 'Message contains specific types of attachments.
5. In the description box click on 'specific types' and then enter the attachments extensions one at a time, clicking 'Add' for each one. You can see a full list of video file extensions here but these are but the ones we are blocking are .avi, .mov and .mpg. Click OK. Click next.
6. Tick the box for 'Quarantine message'. Click next.
7. Give the rule a name and ensure that the 'Enabled' box is ticked.

It's as simple as that.

Technorati : Microsoft Exchange, WorkgroupMail, content filter, e-mail, email, email server, messaging

Computer viruses 'could kill 70% of SMEs/SMBs'

Seven out of 10 SMEs risk going out of business because they are ill-equipped for IT security threats, the National Computing Centre (NCC) said yesterday. The NCC said that small and medium size businesses were particularly prone to losing their business because many believed they did not face the same risks as larger companies. Given that 15,000 computer viruses were discovered in 2005 this is obviously a mistake.

Source: Times Online Enterprise email bulletin - unfortunately it doesn't appear to be replicated on the web site or available as an RSS web feed. But you can subscribe for free at Times Online.

Small businesses get four times as much spam as large companies

Small Business Pipeline reports that small businesses receive almost 50 spam emails per day per user, which is four times the amount  received by employees of large organizations who receive about 12 per day. The amount of spam received by small businesses has increased from 36 in 2004.

One reason for the problem is that many small businesses don't have the appropriate security barriers in place. Employers who fail to protect employees from offensive spam are potentially opening themselves up to damages claims from staff.

That's why Softalk has built-in spam filtering as a standard feature of WorkgroupMail (and therefore of Softalk Collaboration Suite and the soon to be released OfficeTalk 4.5, which both include WorkgroupMail). In addition you can add an additional level of protection by subscribing to SpamCleanser which automatically detects 95% of spam.

Customer Story: Industrial Acoustics Company

Welcome to the first of what we hope will be a series of customer stories, looking at how different companies and organisations use Softalk's products. The first is the Industrial Acoustics Company (IAC) in New York. We chose to profile IAC first not only because they are longstanding customers but also because Hal Schlesinger was the very first person to comment when we started the Let's talk business blog!

Industrial Acoustics Company

Industrial Acoustics Company (IAC) is the world's leading acoustic engineering company and its achievements range from designing and installing advanced digital recording studies for the BBC to developing, manufacturing, and installing a light rail acoustical barrier system for the Santa Fe railroad in the USA. IAC is headquartered in New York and has subsidiaries in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Denmark.

As IAC had grown it made a significant investment in traditional mainframe computer solutions using an IBM AS/400 for payroll, finance and stock control. This reliance on mainframe technology made it difficult for IAC to adapt to the rapid changes in technology and in particular the need for email throughout the company. When IAC first introduced email it was restricted to sales staff and senior management who were given individual ISP accounts using dial-up analogue phone lines. This was expensive and didn't provide a company wide solution.

Hal Schlesinger, IAC's MIS director, said: "We looked at using the AS/400 email solution but it proved to be difficult to use and manage. So I started searching the internet to review what other software products were available."

IAC eventually decided to use Softalk's WorkgroupMail and WorkgroupShare. This provided IAC not only with a company wide email solution but also enabled it to start using Microsoft Outlook to share calendars and contacts between different members of the team.

"Installation of both products was straight forward, we just downloaded them from Softalk's website and followed the wizards to install. Basic installation was a breeze although I'll admit we did have some trouble with the anti-virus plug-in for WorkgroupMail, but Softalk's support was superb and they quickly sorted it out for us," explained Hal.

"It was then quick and easy to roll out the clients for our users and they were able to easily embrace their new communications ability. The great support provided from Softalk meant that our IT department felt they understood the product so were able to support our end users. We didn't need to pay for or take time out for courses either."

Hal finished by saying: "The performance of WorkgroupMail and WorkgroupShare is very good for our purpose and I like the way it's constantly being improved. I feel Softalk has listened to our ideas and I believe that some of them have even been incorporated into the latest release. I recommend Softalk's software without hesitation."