In 2009, I found many claims on the demise of email. Back then, my own, for-what-it-was-worth opinion was "no way." Perhaps that was a knee-jerk reaction on my part, or perhaps it was a statement that arose out of my own use and dependance upon email and I needed to deny the rise of social networks. Well, it now appears that those reports were perhaps just a bit exaggerated. According to Michael Osterman of Osterman Research, email is alive as ever, in fact, email use is up. Today he writes (emphasis mine):
In the 2009 to 2011 timeframe, there were a number of articles in the trade and popular press about the demise of corporate and personal email. Many believed that email use would dwindle as younger people entered the workforce, those weaned on social media and text messaging. Email was for the “grups” (you’re welcome, original Star Trek fans), while newer forms of communication would replace it.
Maybe someday, but not now. We just completed a survey with corporate email users to determine if that was the case. What we found is that 42% of email users are employing email more today than they were 12 months ago, while only 10% are using it less. The remainder are using email at about the same level they were a year ago.
Our research also found that email continues to be the dominant communication tool used in the workplace.
Moreover, I completely agree with his statement that one of the reasons that email remains and grows in popularity is that it serves as a:
...repository of emails, contacts, files and other information that acts as something of a flat-file database in which we can store content that is easily searchable.
This Is Where Indexing and Search Service for Oracle Communications Unified Communications Suite Comes In
If you are like me, you not only need the ability to search the subjects and bodies of your email message, you need the ability to search your email attachments. Indeed, more and more, my email inbox has become my go-to storehouse of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, and so on. So finding data, and finding it fast, is where email inboxes need to go.
Which brings me to Oracle's Indexing and Search Service product. If you haven't heard by now, Indexing and Search Service enables you to quickly search and view your email attachments. Here are some cool facts about Indexing and Search Service:
- Integrated with our Messaging Server and Convergence products, enabling nearly instantaneous results from complex searches such as cross-folder searches.
- Because it is deployed as a separate service, the actual search effort is offloaded from Messaging Server.
- Any IMAP client that can communicate with Messaging Server can take advantage of this powerful search service.
Rather than go on in more detail, refer to the following Indexing and Search Service blog posts and documentation links for more information.