Social networking to encroach on email

Research claims that in four years 20 per cent of employees will use social networking as their only business communication tool

Keeping it social: Gartner forecasts that younger employees will bypass email altogether

Email will be usurped by social networking services for 20 per cent of employees by 2014, according to Gartner research.

The analyst said at its Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2010 that as business communications evolve and microblogging continues to reshape enterprise communications, newer employees will enter the workforce with a predisposition to communicate via a social network.

Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner, said: “In the past, organisations supported collaboration through email and highly structured applications only. Today, social paradigms are converging with email, instant messaging and presence, creating new collaboration styles.

“However, a truly collaborative, effective and efficient workplace will not arise until organisations make these capabilities widely available and users become more comfortable with them. Technology is only an enabler, culture is a must for success.”

Basso said the "rigid distinction" between email and social networks will erode. “Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities.”

Vendors such as Microsoft and IBM will add links to internal and external social networks from within email clients and servers, making services such as contacts, calendars and tasks shareable across email and social networks. By 2012, Gartner said contact lists, calendars and messaging clients in any smartphones will be social-enabled applications.

Basso urged firms to take the lead with social networking and prepare fully for economic recovery and further change.

“The reality is that mobile collaboration will increase for all categories of workers, and organisations can either take the lead, or be led by their users,” she said. “The most progressive organisations won’t be afraid to explore the innovative communications and collaboration models enabled by new devices and social services allow their employees to generate innovative ideas by experimenting with them.”

From a vendor perspective, the market is consolidating around Microsoft and RIM. Gartner forecasts that by 2012, RIM and Microsoft will own 80 per cent of the enterprise wireless email software market.