The Almanac: E-mail

Computerworld - Taking the Politics Out of Migrations
Sometimes top executives decide to change e-mail platforms against the wishes of IT administrators. Or companies with different e-mail systems merge—and one has to go. Sometimes one division wants to switch e-mail vendors and another doesn't. Religious wars between the pro-Microsoft and pro-Lotus factions are common.

The way to depoliticize e-mail migrations is to base the decision more on facts than on emotional outbursts, says Andrew Wolff, vice president at Wellesley, Mass.-based DYS Analytics Inc., which makes software for analyzing e-mail traffic and helps companies with e-mail conversions. Objective metrics about total cost of ownership and performance can help settle disagreements about whether the current system needs to be replaced, he says.

Voice Memos Sent as E-Mail
Nextel Communications Inc. in Reston, Va., recently announced NextMail, an application that allows Nextel subscribers to record voice messages on their mobile phones and send them to any e-mail address.

Nextel, known for the Direct Connect walkie-talkie feature on its mobile phones, is charging $7.50 per month for the service. The subscriber selects a recipient's e-mail address, presses the talk button, speaks into the phone to record the MP3 voice message and then releases the button, which sends an e-mail with the MP3 link or attachment. The service can also send confirmation that the message was received.

The market? Nextel says it's ideal for construction, real estate, insurance, property management and other industries where field workers normally call into headquarters throughout the day with status reports or work orders.

Nextel's i530

CRM and E-mail: Headed for Merger?
The combination of CRM, knowledge management, social networking and e-mail technologies is a powerful one at Chicago law firm Much Shelist Freed Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein PC.

The 85-lawyer firm is starting to use InterAction CRM software from Interface Software Inc. in Oak Brook, Ill., which is tightly integrated with Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook. For example, when Outlook users get an e-mail, they can click a "Who's this contact?" button and get a profile of the sender, if he's a contact in the CRM database. Important e-mails and documents are accessible and organized in an activity log, so teams of lawyers working on complex cases can see "who's doing what with whom," says attorney Daniel L. Liutikas.

The knowledge base, which has profiles of clients, referral sources and outside contractors, has become a central hub for managing cases and marketing, he says. The software's social networking technology helps with developing new business, or "rainmaking," because it shows which lawyers have contacts inside potential client companies, Liutikas adds .

Patent Watch
• E-mail priority alert service. This system's autodialer calls a designated telephone number when the e-mail server receives a message from a high-priority sender, such as an important client. This would be useful for people who infrequently turn on their computers but need to know about important e-mail messages. Inventors: Qinghong Cao, Liang Jin, Wenzhe Luo and Jian Wu, for Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies Inc. —U.S Patent No. 6,745,230, issued June 1

• Detecting unwanted e-mail properties. We usually want e-mail delivered rapidly, but this scheme delays suspicious e-mails for a certain period of time so they can be properly tested for viruses and spam before delivery. Inventors: Lee Codel Lawson Tarbotton, Daniel Joseph Wolff and Nicholas Paul Kelly, for Network Associates Technology Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif. —U.S. Patent No. 6,757,830, issued June 29

Three Questions for Ambuj Goyal, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software
Many users are several versions behind the vendor's latest offering. Is that frustrating to you? A huge fraction—I'd estimate 60% to 70%—have migrated from their old mail systems to the new release. So it's not frustrating to me at all. Every customer has a cycle of upgrades ... and we want to make sure their hardware upgrade cycle is consistent with our software upgrade cycle. So our message to them is to do it at the right time, but do it when you're doing [the hardware upgrade]. For example, if you're doing a server consolidation project, go ahead and do the e-mail project as well. When people move from Notes 5 to Notes 6, we've seen server consolidation requiring as much as 50% less hardware, so there's a significant cost advantage. That's the right time to do it.

The press has run headlines about the death of e-mail because of viruses and spam. What's your view? The news about the demise of e-mail is exaggerated. I don't think the [business] world can survive without e-mail these days. Yes, viruses and spam are hurting the productivity of users. But customers are choosing IBM because we are far more secure and virus-immune than competitors.

Do you foresee any dramatic innovations in e-mail, or is it totally mature? Absolutely, huge innovation is about to come. E-mail is becoming a place where people are starting to manage their activities. So why wouldn't we think in terms of activities first, and e-mail as just one part? We showed at the last Lotusphere something called Activity Explorer, where e-mail, instant messaging and document exchanges are all captured in a single activity, so you can see the complete chain of what has gone on, not just e-mail. It will change the way we think about e-mail.

IBM Lotus' Ambuj Goyal

'Spim' Attacks How many times per week do you receive instant messaging spam, or “spim”? Base: 132 end users at North American companies Source: Osterman Research Inc., Black Diamond, Wash., April 2004