- The 9X Email Problem
In most companies, groupware didn’t solve the problem; it wasn’t that much better than email. … But that’s not really the critical consideration. The critical consideration is brutally simple: are these tools 9 times better than email for collaboration?Consider how high this sets the bar. Email is freeform, multimedia (especially with attachments), WYSIWYG, easy to learn and use, platform independent, social, and friendly to mouse-clickers and keyboard-shortcutters alike. It’s the ultimate example of what Dion Hinchcliffe calls a ‘comfort app‘ (a phrase I love, and plan to steal (with attribution) shamelessly). It would actually be a pretty tough competitor even if it weren’t the universally-used incumbent, and so the beneficiary of the 9X problem. In short, it’s not going anywhere.
(categories: email socialsoftware activitystreams ui ux )