Communications and Technology Industry Research

With e-mail established as a necessity for most business environments, this communications tool is being fine-tuned with more robust features delivered in the form of hosted business solutions.

 

In a recent report, The Radicati Group (News - Alert) examined the hosted e-mail market and made growth predictions for the period of 2008-2012.

 

Hosted e-mail, the firm reported, is often an excellent alternative to traditional on-premises e-mail. This type of service is gaining more acceptance as providers lower prices and expanding their portfolios to include value-added services like email archiving and compliance, security, disaster recovery, and wireless support.

 

The Radicati Group divided hosted e-mail providers into three categories: hosted business e-mail providers, Internet service provides (ISPs)/Webmail providers, and manager e-mail providers.

 

The firm predicted that, during the next four years, many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will switch to hosted business e-mail solutions. The introduction of Google Apps Premier Edition and Microsoft (News - Alert) Online Services last year helped validate this new type of e-mail.