Sun Microsystems today unveiled its Compliance and Content Management Solution, a package which integrates the firm's existing compliance and storage products with regulatory compliance software from AXS-One.

The offering is designed to help customers address US regulatory compliance and business governance requirements including Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, SEC 17a-4, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and their equivalents such as Basel II, around the world.

Through integration with the AXS-One Compliance Platform, customers using the product have a single platform for the management of all corporate electronic records, Sun claimed.

The system incorporates Sun's Solaris 10 and the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS file system software. It allows firms to monitor and manage classes of data/records including email, messaging, documents, databases, enterprise resource planning and images.

"In the past few months, complying with government regulations has become a top priority for organisations around the world," said Ed Valdez, vice president of integrated solutions at Sun.

According to a December 2004 AMR Research alert by analyst John Hagerty, public companies are projected to spend $6bn in 2005 to become Sarbanes-Oxley compliant.

A study published in the same month by IT market research and advisory firm IDC stated that email archiving applications revenue is expected to top $180m worldwide in 2004, up from just $33m two years ago, and to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 50 per cent through 2008.

Carolyn DiCenzo, vice president of research for storage management and email archiving software at Gartner, stated: "Leading solutions in this space bring together all these components to address the retention requirements around email, while providing the opportunity to more efficiently and cost-effectively manage the impact of growing email data stores."

The announcement extends Sun's existing content and compliance offerings that include the Sun Content Infrastructure System powered by Sun StorEdge SAM-FS, the Sun StorEdge Compliance Archiving System, and its Content and Compliance Client Solutions Practice.