After being in the market for five years, Google's enterprise Gmail is building momentum with commercial organizations with more than 5,000 seats, and it now presents a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange Online and other cloud email services, according to Gartner analysts."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. "While Gmail's enterprise email market share currently hovers around one percent, it has close to half of the market for enterprise cloud email.
"While cloud email is still in its infancy, at three percent to four percent of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 percent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 percent by year-end 2020," Cain says.
Other than Microsoft Exchange, Google Gmail is the only email system that has prospered in the enterprise space over the past several years, Cain says. Other enterprise email providers — Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino — have lost market momentum, Cisco closed its cloud email effort and VMware's Zimbra is only now refocusing on the enterprise space, he says.
Other than Microsoft Exchange, Google Gmail is the only email system that has prospered in the enterprise space over the past several years, Cain says. Other enterprise email providers — Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino — have lost market momentum, Cisco closed its cloud email effort and VMware's Zimbra is only now refocusing on the enterprise space, he says.
