Google seems to be slowly wining over Microsoft in various markets after long 12 years of existence. In the space of enterprise email market where Microsoft Exchange has always been known as anonymous leader, Google’s Gmail is silently gaining the momentum. Gmail is expected to cover more than 30% or more of enterprise email market by 2020.
According to a latest study from Garner, Google’s enterprise Gmail service is slowly becoming the most preferred email system among the commercial organizations with more than 5000 seats. Infact, organizations have started looking beyond setting up Microsoft’s Online Exchange only towards Gmail.
However, in current scenario, Gmail doesn’t hold any sizable market share in enterprise segment. With just 1 percent of enterprise email market, Gmail is still lagging much behind than Microsoft. Interestingly, equations change drastically when it comes to enterprise cloud email as Gmail holds more than half of the market share. Though, enterprise cloud email is just 3 -4 percent of overall enterprise email market, it’s expected to grow 5 folds by end of 2016 and close to 55% by the end of 2020, study says.
“The road to its enterprise enlightenment has been long and bumpy, but Gmail should now be considered a mainstream cloud email supplier,” said Matthew Cain, research vice president at Gartner.
The other enterprise email systems like IBM LotusNotes/Domino and Novell GroupWise are still available in the market but their year-on-year growth has become almost negligible. Google’s Gmail I the only enterprise email system that is on prosperous path.
But the growth and the road is not going to be that easy for Gmail in enterprise system. Organizations generally stay quite demanding when it comes to email system as it’s one of the most important aspects of their business communication. Unfortunately, Google is resistant to feature requests that would be applicable to only a small segment of its customers. There may be several complex requirements from many business segments, like Banks and Financial institutions, which Google is unlikely to build into Gmail given the limited appeal.
Google may find itself in thwart relationship with many organizations due to such firm stands and it may go through rough patches while convincing enterprise segment for its traditional email services.
“We believe that, for most organizations, performing one more on-premises upgrade, which will take an organization through 2014, is the most prudent approach. A less-risky approach to cloud email is via a hybrid deployment, where some mailboxes live in the cloud and some are located on premises. This hybrid model plays to Microsoft’s strengths given its vast dominance of the on-premises email market.” Says Mr. Cain.
Whatever the situation, Microsoft and Google both are betting big time over cloud and with Office365 and Gmail it’s just the beginning. Having said that, companies are well aware that to prove their presence in cloud for enterprise email, extensive enhancements, improvisation and security are the prime concerns to focus upon. And with all such endeavors, there is absolutely no space for other competitors.
