Given that e-mail has become a mainstay in our technology driven society, the need to store and organize the information communicated through email has become essential to email management process. Many college students have chosen Google’s free Gmail system for daily email use, but found that the massive amount emails coming in daily can be overwhelming without a means to sort or organize them. Naturally, Google followed suit behind Microsoft Exchange and Lotus to create a filing system for old and new emails that need to be saved and organized.
Google recently introduced Google Message Discovery, a service that will allow users to archive old email and provide on-demand e-discovery. The new product was announced last week on the Official Google Enterprise Blog. It is being hosted through Postini, an email archiving vendor that Google acquired in July of 2007.
Google is not the first technology company to come up with such a detailed filing system, but some believe that it will quickly out-do the competition.
“Lucky for Microsoft, Microsoft Outlook, is already in many businesses across the country because Google is looking to infiltrate every aspect of email software,” says Nick Harrison, an intern at Microsoft’s DC office.
“Even though it is not a new idea, it will seem new to many companies because Google said it is. In the Microsoft offices here, we have teams that focus on new technologies and software,” Harrison continued.
Although the system is very new, many young Gmail account holders already know about the system and plan to organize their emails to save work, memories, or just to have a reference point.
“I will be the first person to use the archiving system, I have tons of emails that I save but don’t need to keep in my inbox for so long,” says Kehlin Sears, senior advertising major at Howard University. “It is a perfect time for me to get my email account together, now that I am looking for jobs and needing to save all of my Howard memories.” Sears continued.
According to Google’s official blog, Message Discovery is free for Google email users; but there is a fee for non-goggle users. The pricing begins at $25 for non-Google email users and there will be an additional $10 per year to keep the subscription.
“Personally, I think this is a genius move by Google, they already have a lot of money, this is just another way to make more. People will not able to avoid saving their emails because after awhile most email accounts force you to delete old mail,” claims Brandon Smith, Howard Unviersity business major.
Many colleges and universities in the DC area frequently use freebie versions of Google applications but will not receive this particular service for free. Google agreed to give the schools a 65% discount.
“The most important task for a company like Google is to get the product out, and then they can worry about the pricing. People will buy it just because Google is branded so well,” says Smith.
