Cost of dealing with junk mail will rise tenfold by 2007, predicts research. Dealing with sp@m emails will cost companies £12.25bn this year, a figure set to rocket to £118.38bn by 2007, according to researchers.

Analyst company Radicati Group warned that a company of 10,000 users with no anti-sp@m protection will spend an average of almost £30 per mailbox per year processing sp@m messages in 2003. With prices for anti-sp@m solutions starting at £9 to £12 per user, ignoring the problem is hard to justify, it said. The research firm's study, Anti-Sp@m Market Trends, 2003-2007, said: "A 10,000-user company, running Microsoft Exchange 2000, is deploying an average of five messaging servers just to process sp@m in 2003, out of a total of 21 messaging servers. "By 2007, if nothing is done to stop sp@m, this will spiral to 25 servers processing sp@m, out of a total of 50 messaging servers." The study concluded that 94 per cent of companies consider sp@m to be a very serious problem, but 43 per cent still do not have a formal anti-sp@m policy in place.

Although tough legislation may bring mild relief to the market, sp@mmers are not likely to cease their activity, and companies should be ready to combat innovative sp@mming tricks with more sophisticated technology as well as better user education, the analyst said. This means a growing demand for anti-sp@m products. Revenues for anti-sp@m vendors and outsourcers are expected to approach £398m this year, growing to over £1.4bn by 2007, according to the study. for sp@m relief contact us here