Is it "Safe" to Store Voicemail in Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging?

 

I've co-authored a post on the MS Exchange Team's blog, "You Had Me At EHLO." It's entitled "Voice Mail and Discoverability with Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging," and explores the features and functions, as well as some of the legal wrangling around storing voicemail, email, and faxes in one system.

You can read it here: https://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/08/21/449657.aspx

In summary, Microsoft hired a law firm to write a white paper investigating the problem, and the white paper concludes ".that no aspect of Exchange alters, by increasing or decreasing, the record retention obligations of these organizations in the U.S. or E.U. ." That is, if a company is obligated to retain voice mail messages, it doesn't matter if they're stored in Exchange 2007 UM or somewhere else - they still need to be retained. Likewise, if voice mail messages have been deleted in the normal course of business prior to an obligation to retain them, the fact they were in Exchange 2007 UM doesn't create a new obligation to retain where no obligation existed before.

 Anyway, it's a great post, I had a lot of help with it, and I highly recommend reading it. There's also a lively comments section down below.