Quocirca releases research on e-mail relevance to SMBs

Internet Business News, July 26, 2005

INTERNET BUSINESS NEWS-(C)1995-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Research conducted on behalf of computer maker Dell into the relevance of e-mail in the current business environment, along with the effect of downtime, has been unveiled.

The study, carried out by research and analysis company Quocirca, questioned 1,102 small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Two thirds of respondents said that e-mail was vital to the sales process, while 90% claimed it was vital or important to customer service, and the importance of e-mail was found to have increased 10% from last year. In addition, over 25% said there would be a significant impact on sales within an hour of e-mail going down and 70% of SMBs expect IT to respond within 10 minutes when it does go down.

The findings were welcomed by Ipswitch Inc, a developer of network management, messaging and file transfer solutions. The report from Quocirca can be found at http://www.quocirca.com/report_dell.htm.> ((Comments on this story may be sent to info@m2.com))