Nucleus Research: Spam Costing US Businesses $712 Per Employee Each Year

Business Wire, April 2, 2007

Despite aggressive spam filter technology, 66 percent of e-mail reaching user inboxes is spam

WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Nucleus Research, a global provider of information technology research and advisory services, today announced that the spam epidemic is costing US businesses $712 per employee each year in lost worker productivity.

According to a survey of 849 e-mail users conducted during March 2007, Nucleus Research and KnowledgeStorm found that two out of every three e-mail messages received by today's business users are spam.

As a result, users are spending 16 seconds identifying and deleting each spam e-mail, which translates into an annual cost of $70 billion to all US businesses.

"Although most organizations have deployed some spam filtering technology, it clearly has not solved the spam problem - in fact, in some cases it's made it worse," said Rebecca Wettemann, VP of Research of Nucleus Research. "Spam is no longer just a technology problem - it's a problem that we should be attacking with more than just technology."

To download the most comprehensive report on spam to date, "Spam: The Repeat Offender," go to www.NucleusResearch.com.

Some additional key findings in the report include:

* Looking at the total e-mail traffic, Nucleus estimates that at least 90 percent of e-mail reaching corporate servers is spam.

* The average user receives 21 spam messages to their inbox each day.

* Many e-mail filtering technologies block anything with the word "Nigeria" in the title or text.

"The Companies and their employees are beyond fed-up with the spam problem," said Jeff Ramminger, executive vice president, KnowledgeStorm. "In fact, almost 20 percent of respondents believe jail time is an appropriate punishment for serial spammers. While that's probably not a realistic outcome, it indicates that frustration with spam has reached a boiling point."

The most common types of spam identified by respondents were adult oriented solicitations (86 percent), financial lending solicitations (80 percent), and retail offers (76 percent).

About Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research is an independent global research and advisory firm that provides CFOs, CIOs and their staffs with the financial and technology expertise they need to evaluate and manage their information technology investments the same way they evaluate and manage other capital investments. Nucleus Research is the first firm of its kind to blend financial analysis with comprehensive technology expertise to deliver 100% impartial return-on-investment (ROI) data and financial analysis services to organizations worldwide. Nucleus analysts use an uncompromising set of processes and tools to evaluate the financial return on IT assets throughout a technology's life cycle, from selection and deployment to upgrade and retirement. Nucleus Research's ROI assessment methodology can be applied to virtually any technology investment. For more information visit: www.NucleusResearch.com.

About KnowledgeStorm

KnowledgeStorm is the Internet's top-ranked search resource for technology solutions and information. Leveraging the KnowledgeStorm Network of premier partners and its extensive search expertise, KnowledgeStorm is able to reach technology buyers and deliver the information they need no matter where their search begins. KnowledgeStorm, with its network, search expertise and performance tools and services, is a powerful resource for technology vendors, providing them the most opportunities to reach buyers on the Internet and convert them into Web leads. For more information, call (877) 340-9274 or visit www.knowledgestorm.com.