Is email dying?

A French Tech company is announcing that they will institute a "zero email" policy which will force the 74,000 employees to communicate via messaging and facebook-style interfaces instead. The impetus for this is to cut down on the non useful communications that occupy their employees time. The CEO, Thierry Breton, former French Finance Minister, is proud of the claim that he has not sent a single email since he took his current job. What he is really doing is just replacing one form of electronic communication with another though. I've got a massively bloated email box, as I'm sure many of you do too. But it is extremely useful. I have half a dozen different messaging accounts on an array of platforms to communicate with coworkers, partners, customers, but email is the one standard that communicates with them all. It's also easier to save and forward along than many other systems because of that standard. Many of the phone calls that I receive aren't productive or are marketing as well, but I'm not about to give up the phone either.

Instant Messaging, "Walls", wikis and Phones are all part of the toolset that allows me to communicate effectively. I'm not that impressed with a CEO who is closing off a communication channel for his company.

http://news.yahoo.com/tech-firm-implements-employee-zero-email-policy-165311050.html