Corporate Email in Europe -- Requirements, Usage and Ways Ahead
Kai Jakobs, Rob Procter, Robin Williams, Martina Fichtner · 1996
Although electronic mail is by far the most popular data communication service, comparably little is known about the problems associated with its introduction and use. This paper looks at different issues, both technical and non-technical, and report the results of a number of interviews with corporate IT managers. It turns out that few of the technical problems identified actually stem from inadequacies of the standards documents, but from incomplete implementations. With respect to non-technical issues, introduction strategies, requirements analyses and user support are the most crucial points. 1 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION Electronic Mail has made its way into the offices of virtually all large international organizations. Recent studies on this subject (e.g. [Ovum 94]) suggest that once it has been introduced at an organization-wide level e-mail yields considerable advantages over `traditional' communication media such as letter, telex, fax, and phone. This holds not only for intern...