Irish E-Mail Compliance Vendor Names U.S. Channel Chief

Ireland-based FCS (Forensic and Compliance Systems) named its first U.S. channel chief last week, as it attempts to expand its toehold in the U.S. market.

Tom Ballance, the new vice president of U.S. channel marketing, said the company "has a small but solid customer base in the U.S. right now," but is looking to new partners to push U.S. growth. "Archiving is hot, and the U.S. is the market we want to be in."

FCS manufactures the Cryoserver e-mail compliance and eDiscovery family of server appliances. "We freeze e-mail and keep it in a forensically sound environment," Ballance explained, capturing and encrypting all internal and external e-mail commmunciations for an organization in the company's tamper-evident, sealed appliances. Any attempts to alter the e-mail record will be detected and logged.

Although Ballance said that FCS's experience with telecom customers in Europe results in a product that's "carrier quality," in terms of performance and scalability, he anticipated that in the United States, "the sweet spot will be small and midsized businesses," including law firms, financial institutions and municipalities.

Colorado-based Ballance, a veteran of AccessData and MCI/Worldcom, said the company is looking for partners with experience in compliance, auditing and digital forensics services. The Cryoserver "takes a great deal of fear away from the general counsel [of an organization], and the IT director," Ballance noted. "That's what's going to give us a unique spot in the marketplace."