I see a lot of commentary that Facebook's non-email email -- that is either a new email is or a new paradigm for what used to be email -- isn't a Google (GOOG) g-mail email killer. I don't see much commentary that it is an IBM Lotus Notes email killer or a Microsoft (MSFT) Outlook/Hotmail/LiveMail (whatever Microsoft calls all this stuff these days) email killer.
I guess that IBM and Microsoft email are already considered dead? Or is it because Notes and Microsoft already have all the features that the mainstream media is wetting its pants over? And that Notes and Office and their predecessors such as Digital's All-in-One have had such features for forever, going back to when Jit Saxena and his team brought the Data General/Comprehensive Electroic Office out of the lab in 1979. Admittedly "seamless messaging" meant PBXs in those days. And "conversational history" required the onerous task of creating a folder (although I think Notes might have done this automatically too; I just can't remember back that far).
What really indicates how trivial this overhyped Facebook announcement is the NY TImes quote from Facebook
"The 15-month effort to develop Messages was the biggest engineering project that Facebook had undertaken, involving 15 engineers..."
Fifteen whole engineers. Wow. That kind of gives the mythical manyear a whole new meaning.
The real question from an IT investment standpoint (assuming you can invest in it at some point) is whether you think people want to keep all this stuff on Facebook's constantly failing public-in-all-senses-of-the-word servers or in their own possession?Do they want to take the chance that Facebook pulls a Coghead and absconds with all their seamlessly organized social history or do they want to control their own destinies?
The answer from time immemorial has been keep it personal. That's not a technical question. That is a human-nature question.
-- Dennis Byron
(no financial interest in companies mentioned)
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