As the volume of e-mail rises, many business users now spend as much as 50% of their time on e-mail. The content contained in these e-mails typically remains in the user's personal in-box or on the local hard drive and is not accessible by other users. Roy Russell discusses the factors driving the rapid adoption of new systems which combine e-mail and document management which, for the first time, allow e-mail to be captured and stored centrally alongside related documents in a complete collaborative electronic matter file.