Gartner Says Worldwide Wireless E-Mail Users to Reach 1 Billion by Year-End 2014

Gartner predicts that worldwide wireless e-mail users will reach 1 billion by year-end 2014. Worldwide business wireless e-mail accounts were estimated at more than 80 million in early 2010, including large, midsize and small organisations, as well as individual professionals - corresponding to about 60 million active users.

An enterprise wireless e-mail deployment has a software gateway that is behind the corporate firewall, possibly connected through a network operations center (NOC) to a mobile client. Most products support Microsoft Exchange Server. IT administration, security and remote device management are supported to a different extent. A consumer wireless e-mail deployment has a software gateway that is deployed by carriers and service providers. The offline e-mail client on the device can be native or downloaded separately. Alternatively, a mobile browser connects to Internet e-mail accounts.

As wireless e-mail begins to integrate with social networking and collaboration, social networking is increasingly complementing e-mail for interpersonal business communications. Gartner predicts that by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

"People increasingly want to use mobile devices for collaboration to share content, information, and experiences with their communities," Ms. Basso said. "Social paradigms are converging with e-mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and presence, creating new collaboration styles."

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