Email Management and retaining

Hi.

I have a bit of a problem. How do other companies handle email? We use two imperfect systems, public folders for *important* message and a database that sometimes link incoming and outgoing messages in a database. A few key staff have pst files to keep those important messages. However, that doesn?t work well since they often get above 1 gig.

My company has a “you must save everything philosophy”. Yes, I know this isn?t the best idea but it works for us.

So the question is, what do you do? How can you keep a record of client, vendor (non-internal) communications?

Please include what size company you are. We are 50 people.

Thanks