Europe's Largest IT Company To Ban Internal Email

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, Europe's Largest IT Company, wants a 'zero email' policy to be in place in 18 months, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees receive per day on average turn out to be useful, and that staff spend between 5-20 hours handling emails every week. 'The email is no longer the appropriate (communication) tool,' says Breton. 'The deluge of information will be one of the most important problems a company will have to face (in the future). It is time to think differently.' Instead Breton wants staff at Atos to use chat-type collaborative services inspired by social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter as surveys show that the younger generation have already all but scrapped email, with only 11 per cent of 11 to 19 year-olds using it. For his part Breton hasn't sent a work email in three years. 'If people want to talk to me, they can come and visit me, call or send me a text message. Emails cannot replace the spoken word.'"

Comments

Re:I've noticed this too

[Nerdfest]

I would have hoped by now that people would realize that tying your communications into a proprietary technology is an exceptionally bad medium to long term decision. At least email is an open standard. If we could get people using open chat protocols that would be fine, but locking ourselves into Facebook, Skype, and MSN is not likely going to end well. I would hope that it ends like AOL did, but people seem to have forgotten about the disadvantages of proprietary walled gardens.

Re:I've noticed this too

[bfwebster]

Actually, this cuts both ways. As someone who has acted as an expert witness in a number of lawsuits, I usually want to see the time-sorted e-mail record where relevant, particularly if there are software developers or engineers involved (since they tend to be more, ah, blunt in their statements). I've seen large cases end up settling unfavorably for one side because of a dozen or so internal e-mails that its personnel had written (one I recall said something to the effect of "Why are we charging our client [a large specific sum of money] and delivering them garbage?").

But I fully agree with you as well: document, document, document, whether by e-mail, memo, or letter. If your firm (particularly if you're a software developer/vendor) has never been involved in a lawsuit, there is a tendency to tell yourself, "We'll make this work out; we want to keep the customer happy; we're all grown-ups here," and so rely on verbal assurances or concessions. Then when a lawsuit happens, you have no documentation -- just he-said/she-said testimony -- as to why (and how) the scope changed or the project went over-schedule/over-budget or why certain IP was used or shared or when certain key inventions were developed. ..bruce..