CloudPro: Although Gmail has been around for five years, market research firm Gartner says the cloud computing service is only now becoming a “viable alternative” to Microsoft’s Exchange communications server. “The road to its enterprise enlightenment has been long and bumpy, but Gmail should now be considered a mainstream cloud email supplier,” wrote Gartner’s Matthew Cain. “While cloud email is still in its infancy… we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 percent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 percent by year-end 2020,” he added.
Gmail currently has about half of the cloud-based e-mail market.