By Antone Gonsalves ,
The reign of the telephone is over.
After more than 125 years since inventor Alexander Graham Bell yelled those historic words, "Come here Mr. Watson, I want to see you," the telephone is no longer the most valuable means of business communications. Its usurper: e-mail.
A survey of businesspeople at 387 organizations found that 80 percent believed e-mail was more important than the telephone in communicating with coworkers, customers, or partners, market researcher META Group said.
Just as surprising for analysts were findings that 74 percent of the respondents believed being without e-mail would present a greater hardship than losing telephone service.
META analyst Matt Cain said he had expected closer to a 50-50 split between the telephone and e-mail. "I didn't expect the telephone to get such a trouncing," he said. "If you ever wanted quantitative evidence to upgrade your e-mail system, this is it."
E-mail's rise to prominence is the result of the technology's ability to reach multiple workgroups or individuals in different geographical locations at the same time, the research firm said. E-mail also offers sales staff and other mobile workers the ability to communicate with more people faster. Finally, the technology creates a written record of all interactions.
However, like any technology, e-mail has its problems. Its importance within a business underscores the need for phone-like reliability and stability. In addition, the rising e-mail volume -- with some respondents receiving 200 messages a day -- means workers are spending several hours a day managing inboxes, as opposed to focusing on their jobs.
To ease the burden, Cain suggested e-mail systems could use more advanced rules based on artificial intelligence to automatically categorize e-mail, so messages from the boss are listed separately from a friend's missive. Better tools for separating portions of a long e-mail thread would also save time. "Vendors must develop tools to help streamline inbox management, and users need to be more adept at handling large amounts of messages," Cain said.
However, like any technology, e-mail has its problems. Its importance within a business underscores the need for phone-like reliability and stability. In addition, the rising e-mail volume -- with some respondents receiving 200 messages a day -- means workers are spending several hours a day managing inboxes, as opposed to focusing on their jobs. "Vendors must develop tools to help streamline inbox management, and users need to be more adept at handling large amounts of messages," Cain said.
Other serious issues accompanying the use of e-mail systems are increasing volumes of spam and the circulation of salacious content and destructive viruses. Newer malicious attacks against e-mail systems included denial of service and mail bombs.
Therefore, META predicted that IT organizations will be dedicating an increasing amount of labor and financial resources throughout the decade in creating safe, secure, and stable e-mail systems.
Another issue arising from e-mail usage centers on workers' preference to store messages. While this is a virtue for some, management may prefer the rapid destruction of e-mail, a tactic often advised by corporate legal departments. Such records can be subpoenaed in lawsuits or criminal investigations.
META advised corporations to address the conflict through formalized records management programs.
Despite the rise in stature of e-mail, respondents did point out a few shortcomings. Workers chose telephones over e-mail when there was a need for more personal communications; hearing the tone in a person's voice can add a lot of context to what's said. These findings indicated that e-mail was sometimes seen as impersonal and prone to misunderstandings, META said.
Other findings in the study included:
Try TechWeb's RSS Feed!Lowes seeking Information Security Analyst II in North Wilkesboro, NC
United Nations Foundation seeking Systems Administrator in Washington, DC
World Book seeking Java Technical Lead in Chicago, IL
Advanced Workstations in Education seeking Software Developer in Chester, PA
Silicon Labs seeking Automotive Market Segment Director in Austin, TX
For more great jobs, career-related news, features and services, please visit our Career Center.
TechWeb's FREE e-mail newsletters deliver the news you need to come out on top.
Get definitions for more than 20,000 IT terms.
Editorial and vendor perspectives
