Email strikes back (on Intranet Portals)

Email was the first collaboration tool in the Intarnet. Then intranet portals emerged, and they wanted to kill Email because of its lacks: instead of sending back and forth messages and documents, they are placed on a portal web-page (for example, in the news, on the forum or file cabinet). But due to the fact that people got used to e-mail and email was also used for external communications - intranet portals failed to replace the Email as a primary workspace. Moreover, recently Email launched the counterattack. And it happened because the major enterprise Email-solutions (GMail, Outlook, Lotus Notes) have become the platforms that allow third-party developers to add new functionality.

Most clearly this trend can be noticed in Google moves. Google Wave was partially closed while GMail becomes the central point to access all other office applications. With its various extensions, GMail allows to communicate via video chat, manage documents, collaborate on tasks, plan calendar events, search for content in the online office.



Recently a large number of plug-ins, that help Email compete with intranet portals, appeared. For example, Xobni, Gist, Rapportive, Outlook Social Connector. First, they allow you to organize files and documents from email messages into ordered lists - almost like on a portal. And Harmony plug-in perfectly integrates Outlook and Google Docs and lets get rid of the file sending at all. It even allows to edit documents directly in Outlook.



Additionally, Email-solutions compete with the intranet portals for the function of corporate social network. Address book becomes a company social graph, and the above mentioned plug-ins create employee social profiles, pulling public data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks. These profiles look much more interesting and more useful than the scanty profiles on intranet portal.

See also: Top 10 Email services