ARMA Show-A couple of useful new products and upgrades for your DRED project

by Cary J. Calderone, Esquire

Here are a few interesting product offerings I noticed at the ARMA Show this week.  This is not a product review.   I have not tested the products but just looked at their demonstration modules.   However, I like to point out when I find a product that can and will fix specific challenges for many companies.  The two products I noticed come from,  Page Freezer, and ZL Technologies Inc.


Page Freezer  simplifies the task of maintaining and tracking copies of your website and other online representations and communications.  In my experience I have found many organizations need or want to keep copies of their website information and twitter feeds.  These may include representations of service or product features and sometimes they must be tracked in order to comply with a Public Information request or Legal Hold.  Either way, it is difficult to keep and track a website that may be updated daily by many different departments and authors.  Who is responsible to archive all the changes?  Page Freezer can automatically archive selected pages or entire websites on the fly according to the rules you setup. The product also tracks Twitter updates and supposedly will be able to archive Facebook updates as well.  I know quite a few organizations that would like to be using this tool right now.
ZL Technologies Inc. has added new features that allow its customers to "manage in place."  Many companies operate internationally, and are faced with very challenging and frequently conflicting laws concerning email communications and electronic data storage and retention management.  ZL technologies has added features that will allow its users to archive and manage electronic data in place, even in a location like Japan.  There are many solutions that can managing data in the US, especially when it is all in English.  But when information is collected from many places and in many languages, there are extra challenges to the solution, and there may even be prohibitions against moving some types of data, i.e., across country borders.  In these instances, managing in place can be a most useful feature.   Many companies have tried to move all the electronic data to one central  location, to be managed according to one set of rules.  Not only does this mean potential bandwidth and regulatory problems, but how many people in your main U.S. office can read and manage information that is in Japanese or some other language?  Usually, the answer is nobody.  So you have moved the data away from the very people who are most capable of managing it because they can read it and know the local rules that apply to it.  ZL Technologies is trying to give you, a better way.