Email is dead; long live Email

If you were to trust in the media, you could not be faulted for believing that email is dead and the future of electronic communication is all messaging and group chat apps. To be sure, programs such as Slack, Yammer or Teams are fun to use and better suited to certain tasks and areas of application than the internet bedrock  known as email. But none other than Oji Udezue, Group Product Manager responsible for HipChat at Atlassian, admits that even he still repeatedly turns to email as a communication channel. In a “Fast Company” article  the manager identifies the following four cases as being typical email scenarios in his opinion:

1. One-to-one exchanges – not all communication should involve the whole team
2. When waiting is not a problem – not everything needs to be real-time all the time
3. As the door to the world – it can also be rather pleasant, if the sender of a message can’t see whether you are present or make assumptions about your availability
4. For long-form messages – epic reports and other long documents are still not handled well by chat platforms, even if email is marked by the well-known issues with updates, version-controls and content searchability

Udezue goes on to make a case for co-existence: The more we work with and test the boundaries of team chat, the more clearly defined email’s use cases become. This could be helpful in getting a grip on the overflowing inboxes of company employees. Over the medium and long term companies would then be expected to slowly shift more and more functions over to collaborative platforms. Email will then slowly fade into the background, even if it never disappears completely. With Retarus’ Cloud E-Mail Services you can encrypt and archive your emails, send messages directly from applications or inform numerous recipients at the same time. Discover the opportunities offered by efficient enterprise email communication. To find out how we can support you in perfecting the flow of information with your customers and suppliers, please click here or get intouch with your local Retarus contact Person.