Workforce Email

How big is your organization? What percentage of employees have access to email? Is email access limited to people with desktop computers, or does it extend to employees who don't even have desks (e.g., employees who work on a retail sales floor or factory floor)? The Radicati Group last week reported about the prospects of an increase in "workforce email"--the extension of basic email to employees who aren't knowledge or office workers (and who haven't enjoyed email privileges in the past). Workforce email, according to Radicati analyst Marcel Nienhuis, is a growing trend, especially in companies with more than 10,000 workers. Today, says Nienhuis, 45 percent of corporate employees worldwide don't have email accounts. By 2007, he estimates that only 25 percent will be without email, with most of the expansion occurring in the workforce-email area. According to Radicati, the vendors vying for the potential $6.7 billion workforce email market include Critical Path, Gordano, IBM, Microsoft, Mirapoint, Novell, Oracle, Rockliffe, Sendmail, Stalker Software, and Sun Microsystems.

The trend has interesting implications for the acquisition and administration of email services within an organization. The optimal total cost of ownership (TCO) for workforce email, according to Radicati, is only $27 per person, spread over a 3-year period. That figure calls for solutions that require little or no training, administration, or maintenance and a small per-user acquisition cost. Think about browser-based solutions that can run on minimal kiosk hardware. In the Microsoft world, that means Outlook Web Access (OWA). An attractive combination might be OWA running as part of a corporate portal that can give employees instant access to human resources (HR) information, corporate announcements, and other information that takes a lot of time and money to distribute in printed format.

Microsoft has already recognized a distinction among types of email users with its new Client Access License (CAL) policy for Exchange Server 2003. You can buy a Device CAL that lets any number of users access their mailboxes through a shared kiosk, workstation, or other device. For the same price, you can buy a User CAL that lets one user access his or her mailbox on any device--office PC, home PC, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) phone, PDA, airport Internet kiosk, and so forth. (See the URL below for more information about Exchange 2003 licensing.) You can mix and match the two types of CALs. For example, a company with 10,000 employees--5000 on desktop PCs and 5000 "deskless" workers--could purchase 5000 User CALs and 100 Device CALs. The company could use those Device CALs to license 100 kiosks at which the deskless employees could access email. Earlier versions of Exchange would require 10,000 CALs to serve those 10,000 employees.

Extending email to the workforce has implications beyond the cost to IT, of course. Novell Collaboration Product Line Manager Howard Tayler suggests that providing email as an employee benefit, especially if the email is spam-filtered and if employees have permission to use their accounts for personal email, can increase employee loyalty. In the high-turnover retail segment, he says, even 2 extra months of retention per worker would be a huge benefit.

Tayler also notes that retail- and factory-floor workers aren't the only ones who might benefit from workforce email. A company's initial targets might be highly trained or specialized workers who don't sit at a desk. Novell, he says, has been working with Southwest Airlines for several years to ensure that airline pilots have email access from wherever they fly. Jeff Brainerd of Mirapoint agrees that the definition of "workforce" depends on the industry. For example, Brainerd says, university students and alumni seem an awful lot like workforce employees, without the need for full-blown collaboration tools.

As with the introduction of any new employee benefit, workforce email might come with responsibilities, too. For example, companies might require employees to check email on a regular basis to receive important announcements and documents that the company previously distributed on paper (assuming regulations permit electronic distribution). But will companies provide on-the-job time for checking email? So far, the Radicati Group doesn't see that happening: Instead, corporations expect workers to check email on lunch or other breaks or before or after work. Perhaps companies will eventually need to include the time necessary for an email break in the TCO for workforce email.

Exchange Server 2003 Licensing FAQ

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/licensingfaq.asp