it is sometimes usefull to create a zip (or tar.gz) of some files ina workspace to archive as a single unit.

However to do this you need to rely n platform tools to create the file.
Whilst on Unix/Linux this is not too hard on windows it is a PITA requiring either extra tools or powershell scripting - neither of which is portable.

It would be nice if Jenkins/javas ability to create tar.gz/zip was exposed as a native step.