Microsoft announced the public beta of Exchange Server 2010 today and it includes something called "MailTips" to add a layer of oversight to end-user actions.  No, this is not big brother. This is about self-policing.

I view this as further confirmation that the enterprise needs a greater level of control and monitoring over what happens in their email systems. For many years during my tenure at both Orchestria (now assimilated by CA) and MessageGate, we advocated and demonstrated how varying degrees of control and monitoring could not only reduce risk but save money. Absent specific security or compliance regulations, most companies need to focus solely on the end-user and their daily activities by putting the control and oversight directly in their hands.

Functionality like MailTips is targeting the hardest problem to solve – end user behavior. One of the use cases referenced in John Cook's TechFlash post is one that we always saw and specifically measured for customers at Orchestria and MessageGate. It is way too easy to inadvertently send something outside the company with auto address completion and the like. Where it gets tricky is when the definitions of outside and inside are complex like across business units, joint ventures, or subsidiaries all with multiple domains and constantly changing employees.

I am confident that MailTips will satisfy the baseline use cases for the end-user but there is still a need for technologies that can handle additional complexity or where more robust rules and dispositions are required.