Delete Forever

Does the increasing adoption of collaborative platforms signal the end of emails

- Ruchika Shah

Like many scientific and technological firsts, the beginnings of the now-ubiquitous email is one that is mired in claims and controversies. Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson is widely believed to have sent an electronic message from one computer to another perched next to it at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971, and introduced the ‘@’ symbol as part of email id. Shiva Ayyadurai, an India-born American scientist and entrepreneur, on the other hand, claims he created the email in 1978 for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey while attending a summer programme there; he was 14. Ayyadurai received a copyright in 1982, the year the word became a part of the English language.

Although the jury may still be out on who is the rightful claimant, what is certain is the widespread adoption of the email over the following decades, and the way in which it has revolutionised the way we work. “Twenty-five years ago, email disrupted the way we worked and communicated by bringing with it, unimaginable changes, allowing us to work remotely, communicate freely, and bringing down costs exponentially,” says Mitch Young, vice president and general manager, Asia-Pacific-Japan, ServiceNow.

But in 25 years, it has also become one of the most misused enterprise technologies, he adds. Originally meant to replace static messages that could be left on the same computer, “email is being deployed for purposes it was never designed or intended for—to get things done, share and collaborate, and as a communication tool”.

Last year, 269 billion emails were sent across the globe every day; the number is likely to increase to over 333 billion by 2022, according to Statistica. In 2012, a McKinsey report said, average employees spent about 28 percent of their time a week managing email. A 2015 ServiceNow research raised it to 40 percent. That amounts to 104 work days in a year.