 New Students Welcome
FREE Tuition
Online Training
Start Today |
E-mail Usage
Continues to Grow At Mind-Boggling Rates; U.S. Users Lead the Way in Account Ownership
Nov. 29, 1999
E-mail is growing in popularity. There are a total of 435 million active electronic mail
accounts in the world - enough for every man, woman, and child in the United States,
Mexico, and Canada to have their own e-mail address.
Messaging Online, a web portal for the electronic messaging industry, notes in a
just-released report that the number of electronic mailboxes in active use around the
world grew by 71 percent by the end of September.
E-mail accounts are available in a number of ways: Webmail (mail available via the
Internet), Internet Service Providers (ISP) (available as an "add on" service to
an ISP subscription), and corporate accounts are the most common. Messaging Online
estimates Webmail and ISP e-mail accounts both more than doubled, to 150 million and 100
million, respectively, while the number of corporate electronic mailboxes grew 20 percent
to 180 million worldwide. The U.S. and Canada accounted for roughly 5/8ths of the total
while Europe, Australia, and Japan accounted for roughly a third of the worldwide
installed base.
"Americans are the e-mail junkies," notes Eric Arnum, editor of Messaging
Online. Most e-mail users in this country have at least two e-mail addresses, which
accounts for the Lion's share of e-mail
residing in the United States.
"There are few places left where you can't receive e-mail," says Arnum, who has
tracked the growth of the electronic messaging market for almost 15 years. "Cell
phones, video game consoles, even cable TV cable box top units can get an e-mail address.
Wireless, fax, and voicemail are converging around the electronic mailbox in the
workplace, and everything from MP3 music files to family photos are showing up as email
attachments in the home."
Arnum notes that, in the early 1990's, the work/home e-mail split was 80/20. Now,
consumers have flocked to Internet services and Webmail, the split has reversed direction
to 40/60. Nevertheless, corporate e-mail remains a powerful source of growth for
electronic messaging. For that reason, outsourcing companies like United Messaging, Inc.
(www.unitedmessaging.com) are in a great competitive position to take advantage of the
continuing growth of e-mail.
Messaging platforms - systems that run e-mail - have enjoyed robust growth. "What's
surprising is how the Y2K bug is actually accelerating sales for these platforms rather
than slowing them," he adds.
Fifteen messaging platforms account for three-quarters of the installed base. However, at
least 400 companies count themselves as e-mail system or service operators of some kind,
and more appear each day.
While Lotus Notes remains the top corporate messaging platform in terms of installed base,
and while the third quarter was its best ever for sales, Microsoft Exchange is actually
ahead for the year to
date. Notes grew by 13.3 million seats since the end of 1998, but Microsoft Exchange grew
by 14.5 million seats in the same period. "Both these products have been in a tight
footrace for at least seven quarters," Arnum says, "and it's still too close to
call a winner for the calendar year."
Messaging Online is an advertising-supported information service located at
http://www.messagingonline.com on the World Wide Web. Daily newsletters emailed for free
to subscribers include Messaging Today and Messaging Headline News. E-mail, Web, online
chat, instant messaging, pagers/cell phones, MP3 audio, and MPEG video are among the media
used to deliver the latest industry news and research.
|
|
|
|
Yahoo! Internet Life
Magazine Description Yahoo! Internet Life combines print and online
content to give users easy, direct access to the best sites on World Wide Web. Every issue
has hundreds of Web site reviews, category rankings, pointers, tips, and timesaving hints
for exploring the Internet. The magazine helps to make every minute readers spend on the
Web more fun, profitable, and rewarding.
 
Fast Company
Magazine Description Fast Company — the handbook of the business
revolution — is Rolling Stone meets The Harvard Business Review. Each hip,
ground-breaking issue covers the latest business news and trends, leading-edge
entrepreneurs, and of course, the fastest companies in business today. If you're looking
for more than a conservative business magazine, read Fast Company.
|
