The software as a service (SaaS) market for email will grow by 20 per cent within the next three years, according to research firm Gartner.
Back in 2007, SaaS email only represented one per cent of the commercial email market, but by 2012 Gartner believes this will increase twenty times over.
A spokesperson from Google, one of the firms expected to dominate in this growing market, said: "We think this move is an important one for consumers and enterprise, especially enterprise due to the stability, security and lower cost. We welcome this shift to cloud based services and are happy to be involved."
However, the Gartner report warned third-party product vendors to be aware of a few key areas.
Applications core to the running of on-premise email, such as disaster recovery, and spam and virus filtering tools is one area along with client-side applications such as folder management and applications that extend the email platform such as archiving and encryption.
Rene Millman, senior research analyst at Gartner, warns to be careful. "In the current economic climate, organizations will be looking to at these services to keep their businesses going without a huge upfront outlay. However, one must think carefully about which provider to choose," he said.
"Should a Saas vendor go out of business it could very well adversely affect the ability of your business to run if you heavily rely on their services. Make sure that you have a back-up plan should the worst happen."
