Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0…….Inbox 2.0?

In the New York Times, Saul Hansell’s latest blog gave insight as to where Google and Yahoo are trying to improve their email systems. It is quite the hot topic, because TechCruch is discussing the topic as well. The goal of the two companies is to turn your inbox into your main dashboard for the internet. As with all the other rising trends, the goal of every company is to develop the next new thing in social networking software.

The main question that pops into my head after reading this article is why is Microsoft not jumping at the chance to improve Outlook? There’s no denying how pervasive it is in the workplace. There are so many critical business tools already encompassed within it, rather than focus on a separate Enterprise 2.0 platform, why not update the key elements that are becoming so important in the business world and expand further with Web 2.0 technologies? The program currently hosts email, schedules, tasks, notes, etc. It pushes communications and instantly connects a message you send to a topic and recipient (s). And all of this can happen in thirty seconds whether the recipient is in London or in the next cubicle.

Email today is one of the main backbones of business, perhaps supplanting of faxes and phone calls as they dwindle. Email has been critical to the growth of connectivity from the earliest days of the Internet. It’s remarkable that it’s not a cornerstone at the beginning of the Enterprise 2.0 revolution. Even with the rise of Instant Messaging within the workface, many companies still do not take advantage of this tool.

So now the ball is in Microsoft’s court. Outlook is in the perfect position to evolve into Inbox 2.0 at the forefront of Enterprise 2.0. The question is, will they choose to take Outlook to the next level? With Google clearly interested in the enterprise marketing could the day come that another platform could come to take Microsoft’s share of the business email world.