Wireless email to be consumed by 350 million by 2010<br/>

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Wireless email access is headed for its time in the spotlight, with Gartner predicting that some 350 million business and consumer users will be accessing their messages wirelessly by 2010.

That will equate to 20 per cent of all email accounts, which is a massive step up from the less-than-20 million business users accessing wireless email today, according to the analyst who is predicting that a democratisation process will play a central role in the impending boom.

IT consumerisation will also have a hand in the changes ahead, with people increasingly being able and wanting to access corporate email messages from personal devices, in addition to the fact that mobile workers can only do their job as effectively as if in the office if they have access to real-time communication tools.

The reverse is also true as those outside of the business world, fuelled by greater availability and cost-effectiveness of devices, realise the benefits of accessing personal email on the move.

"Over the next three years wireless email will become increasingly popular with both businesses and consumers," said Monica Basso, Gartner's research vice president.

"By 2012, wireless email products will be fully interoperable, commoditised and have standard features. They will be shipping in larger volumes at greatly reduced prices. Convergence will happen on the client side, hiding technology complexity from users and allowing them to focus on messaging content. By 2017, wireless email will be fully integrated with other messaging tools into personal, converged communications. Companies like Microsoft, IBM and RIM are already taking some steps in this direction."

The next generation of consumers and workers will also be digital natives, fuelling the demand for web-based email access.

However, as the worlds of corporate and consumer technologies converge, organisations must pay close attention to the potential security risks, warns Gartner.

"Today wireless email is spreading across the enterprise and if not supported by the IT organisation, individuals will find their own ways to access work email on personal devices with significant security implications," added Basso.

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