Email, as we know it today, is just over 20 years old – and has only been in widespread use for considerably less than that. But there has been no shortage of those wishing to tell us that as a medium it is dead and buried. Most recently, two UK Universities have said how students no longer want to communicate via email and are focusing efforts on answering queries via social media channels instead.
“For this generation, this is a normal way of communicating and their expectations are very high,” said Katie Connolly of Birmingham University in an attempt to write email’s obituary. “You can’t leave things a week or two. Email is slower.”
Communication is constantly evolving, and it would be hasty to say that social media will replace it entirely. But the evidence suggests that more and more people are actually moving away from email – not to social networks – but to a new breed of messaging applications. Perhaps the main reason why Facebook agreed to purchase WhatsApp for $19Bn – no small pocket change, that’s for sure.
In just a couple of years, OTT messaging services have grown exponentially in use. A recent report in GigaOM shows that six of the most commonly used services now handle tens of billions of messages a day and have over a billion users. WhatsApp users alone send over 50 billion messages a day. A staggering figure.
So, what does this mean for email?
With 3.9 billion email accounts worldwide today – and an annual growth rate of 6% (more than 4.9 billion accounts by 2017) – email is still entrenched in how people work and communicate. Just like the TV and Radio were reported of dying, the truth of the matter is: the eyes of the partners we talk to get wide when they understand the options they have to go beyond email (both in financial terms and extending reach of online services) partnering with Open-Xchange.
What sets email apart is that it was the first electronic messaging protocol that we could all own a piece of. Almost everyone has at least one email address now, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. It’s still the preferred method of communication for business, and for all the benefits of OTT online casino messaging services, it’s not quite the right medium for long form, nuanced official messages.
Email, social networks and OTT messages all form part of a rich tapestry of communications. Let’s not forget, either, the role that video and voice can play, or even managing appointments for face-to-face meetings.
One thing that is sure not to change in all of this is the user, and while channels of messaging increase and become more fragmented, the need to centralize communications becomes greater than ever. It’s the evolution of the webmail platform that has been driving this change in centralizing communications – pulling in different messaging streams into one home, accessible across a range of devices.
This is where OX App Suite comes in: we’ve mastered email, and are advancing how integrating social feeds across the communication cycle are changing how people work. Next up, is voice and video — powered by Voiceworks – and meshing-up productivity work flows and how we daily keep in touch stay private. And with our open architecture, there are no limits to what else can be integrated within OX App Suite: making people’s creation and sharing of personal content a more seamless part of a secure web experience. What software do you trust to deliver you this experience and value?