E-mail more popular than phone

Datamonitor/Dimension Data research reveals that 100% of the end-users surveyed use e-mail, followed by fixed-line telephones (80%), mobile telephones (76%) and instant messaging (66%). The study points out the three most ubiquitous technologies increase productivity the most. Over 70% of the end-users surveyed say e-mail impacts positively on their productivity, followed by conventional fixed-line telephony (53%) and mobile telephony (52%). From a productivity point-of-view, the research shows that instant messaging, blogs and softphones are considered most disruptive, and could negatively impact productivity if not managed properly. The research surveyed 390 IT managers and 524 enterprise users across 13 countries in the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The results may not come as a surprise to those companies that have a lot of branch offices or telecommuters. Nemertes Research says 83% of companies run virtual workplaces, and such organizations overall are experiencing an average 11% growth in the number of branch offices meaning there’s a whole lot of people communicating without ever seeing or possibly hearing their branch office brethren. Taking the email growth a step further, Datamonitor said organizations view more collaborative communications will be the wave of the future. For example the survey found click-to-dial on desktops (52%), and presence (42%)applications as maturing technologies that will be routinely used in the corporate environment within two years.