The world of computer forensics is growing rapidly as police and governments realize that the wealth of digital information on a suspected criminal's computer can be hard to retrieve. To help legal agencies convict criminals, Dell has announced a new product offering in digital forensics for police.

Dell, the world's second largest computer maker, announced today that the new forensics service has a goal of helping police convict criminals in the face of growing digital evidence. The new digital forensics package will help police reduce the backlog of cases that can be as long as two years behind.

The offering will also allow multiple analysts to work on the evidence and preserve a trial of evidence handling for auditing purposes. To offer the package, Dell partnered with Intel, EMC Corp, Oracle Corp, Symantec Corp, and forensic data specialist AccessData.

The hardware and software forensics package gives the law enforcement agency the convenience of cloud computing and speeds access to evidence in the face of legal constraints such as time limits on how long terrorism suspects can be held.

Dell's head of European public-sector business Josh Claman said, "[The new forensics offering] embodies everything we wanted to achieve when we decided to restructure the way Public Sector customers' needs are addressed."

Dell cites research firm IDC claiming that the digital forensics market would be worth $630 million this year, up from $252 million in 2004 and the international market for the service is worth $1.8 billion by 2011. Dell plans to present the new service to the British Association of Police Officers today.