E-mail is electronically transmitted mail via computer and hand phone. Depending on its size, which is weighed in bytes, the transmission of data takes places within a few seconds or minutes.
Based on history, E-mail is a byproduct of the US military Defense System. Before the usefulness of E-mail was perceived, the internet was widely employed initially for military and academic use.
Millions of end users now depend on E-mail software to communicate with each other by sending and receiving electronic messages via the Internet or their organizations’ intranets or extranets.
E-mail is used in businesses, government department, universities, schools, homes, kiosks and on mobile laptops, hand phone, pagers and personal digital assistants.
E-mail is the fastest, most flexible, cost efficient, personalized and targeted communication medium in the world today.
Full featured E-mail software like Microsoft Exchange E-mail can route the messages to multiple end users based on predefined mailing lists and provide password security, automatic message forwarding and remote user access.
They also allow us store messages in folders with provisions for adding attachments to message files. E-mail packages may also enable us to edit and send graphics and multimedia as well as text, and provide bulletin board and computer conferencing capabilities.
People have two fundamental communication needs that various forms of technology can aid: speed and regularity.
While the telephone provides rapid, real time communication, electronic mail provides a regularity that is lacking in telephone communication.
E-mail became popular because of its relatively low cost, high reliability and most instantaneous delivery as compared with regular mail.
E-mail provides a high level of informality, a sense of community and sharing, wide tolerance of selling and typographical errors and brevity of expression.
Features of Electronic Mail
