Time for e-mail to change: Cisco

A study conducted by Cisco on end users’ collaboration usage in the workplace finds that e-mail remains the primary method of collaboration, but it’s time for e-mail to evolve. According to the study conducted through Harris Research, 59 per cent of the respondents using social networking for work say that their usage of has increased.
About 91 per cent of the participants supported e-mail as the most frequently used application for collaboration. People like email because it provides an easily accessible record of communication and enables them to connect with many at the same time, the study said. However, the study finds that what people want from their email is changing. Users complained that they lack the ability to collaborate in real time.
End users are not happy with the limited storage capacity of e mail. They are concerned that e-mails with no organizational structure come to their inbox.
“The findings were not a surprise to Cisco,” Duncan Greatwood, senior director of engineering, Cisco, said. “People want to use email as a platform to collaborate on documents, initiate an instant message or video conference, and ample storage.”
“People want to link e-mail into social networking tools to increase productivity,” he continued. “Cisco is addressing the integration of the two into our collaboration portfolio.