Corporate email systems are driving IT workers crazy. Really.
A new study reveals that more than one-third of IT staffers say the loss of email is more
traumatic to them than a car accident or getting divorced. With American workers more
dependent on email than on the telephone when it comes to business communications, keeping
the corporate email system up and running is really stressing out the IT department.
The study, which was done by Veritas Software Corp., a storage software company based in
Mountain View, Calif., also shows that 68 percent of IT workers say users get irate within
as little as 30 minutes without email access. And one-fifth of IT managers say their jobs
would be on the line if the system was not back up within 24 hours.
”Saying it’s worse than divorce may be a little overdone, but it is accurate,” says Sara
Radicati, president and CEO of The Radicati Group, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based market research
and consulting firm specializing in messaging systems. ”People get very emotional over the
loss of email. They get frantic and feel disconnected. Then that pressure is put on the IT
manager.”
A full 34 percent of IT staffers surveyed said a week without email would be harder to deal
with than a car accident or divorce. Despite that fear, when unplanned downtime does happen,
only 4 percent of IT managers say they can restore it in less than an hour. Fifteen percent
say it takes a full hour, and 41 percent say it takes more than an hour to restore the whole
system. The Veritas report notes that 39 percent say they don’t know how long it would take
to get their email systems up and running again.
The roll of email in the enterprise becomes more critical when business executives and IT
managers realize that it has become the most important communication tool in the office.
A wide majority of business people rely on email more than the telephone when it comes to
business communications, according to a recent study from Meta Group, Inc. The report shows
that 80 percent of the business people surveyed say email is more valuable to them than the
telephone. Meta Group, an industry analyst firm based in Stamford, Conn., also reports that
74 percent of those surveyed say being without email would present more of a hardship than
being without phone service.
That means IT workers are under a tremendous amount of pressure to keep that email flowing,
says Chris Williams, an analyst at Ferris Research, Inc., an industry analyst firm based in
San Francisco.
”When a company email system goes down, IT is under the gun to get it back as quickly as
possible,” adds Williams. ”When email goes down for a company, it is a big deal and it’s
an all-hands effort to get it restored.”
Williams also notes that workers have become tied — from both a business and an emotional
sense — to their email. Without it, they’re frantic. And when end users become frantic,
it’s not long before they share that feeling with IT.
”Look at the volumes,” says Williams. ”People spend all day with their email up and
running. When a message comes in, they can respond quickly. There’s cost advantages. There’s
time advantages. Its a worldwide phenomenon. You can reach anybody anywhere around the
world… Saying it’s very useful is an understatement.”
Analysts note that problematic email systems are causing undue stress in the workplace.
”Email has become far more than a communication tool, placing a huge responsibility on
organizations to ensure that email is always available,” says Mark Bregman, an executive
vice president at Veritas. ”When IT managers fail to keep the systems running, they inhibit
the ability of the entire organization to conduct business.”
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.