Email

Can Yahoo or Gmail help IT departments cut costs?

There’s a lot of good information in Linda Tucci’s report from the SIMposium 08 conference in Orlando this week, including an interview with Sunoco Inc. CIO and incoming Society for Information Management president Peter Whatnell discussing his company’s approach to budgeting in this recession. Sunoco prepared three budgets for next year: what IT would have proposed had the recession not occurred; what happens if the budget stays flat; and what a 20% reduction in budget would look like.

Here’s one part, toward the end of the story, that jumped out at me:

“One game changer [Whatnell is] pushing is using providers like Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. for email service. The move to cloud providers for email would eliminate the need for disaster recovery for email, since that is baked into the service. If the tradeoff is 90% of the service for one-tenth of the cost, this is an option CIOs must consider.”

Especially in a recession, CIOs and their technology departments are looking to cut costs. So why isn’t this option being discussed more often? Are companies just so used to Outlook and the like that they don’t consider alternatives? Is it because business addresses including @yahoo.com and @gmail.com would appear unprofessional?

If it’s because of some of the well-known scares associated with using cloud email for business purposes, I fully understand. Remember when Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account was hacked? Nobody wants sensitive company information floating around channels that are not secure. Before overhauling one’s email-server approach, a CIO and his staff would need to methodically review and implement email policies aimed at protecting passwords and other personal information.

Work email: When it just can’t wait until morning

With the growing popularity of smartphones and business VPNs, it’s getting tougher and tougher to let an email just sit in your inbox unread for any period of time - even in what are technically your off-hours.

According to a study published Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, of the 2,144 adults surveyed this spring, 96% used email, the Internet or cell phones, and 80% believed that the technologies have improved their ability to do their jobs.

But the flipside is 46% said these devices increased the demands that they work more hours, and 49% said the technologies make it harder to disconnect from work even in their off-hours. Half of the respondents who were employed and use email said they check their work email on weekends, and 22% said they check “often” on the weekends.

Now, whether or not this qualifies as an invasion on one’s downtime depends, I think, on what people’s motivations are for doing so. I tend to check my work email at least once every evening after I’ve left the office, and at least once during the weekend. I’ve never been told I’m required to do so, but I do it anyway, probably because I don’t see it as making more work for myself - quite the opposite, in fact.

I find that reviewing and replying to emails from home (or from my phone) in a timely manner makes my mornings a lot more bearable. I come into the office feeling like I’ve gotten a good running start on my morning’s activities and can focus on those, rather than on the constant cycle of reviewing, replying and deleting.

Have I ever stressed myself out in my off-hours due to my email checking? Sure, it’s happened, and I’ve cursed myself for not being able to fully unplug from the office. And I guess the extra email time does technically translate to “working more hours” on top of my normal office hours. But doing so makes those office hours a lot more productive and enjoyable.

Your take?

Palin’s Yahoo! hack raises security concerns

In more Sarah Palin/IT news…maybe there’s a good reason for John McCain’s professed aversion to e-mail. He’s selected a more tech-savvy running mate, but she’s quickly become a poster child for some work-e-mail no-nos - and what can go wrong when using public-access mail servers for official business.

VP candidate Palin had her “gov.palin@yahoo.com” Yahoo! e-mail account hacked yesterday and some of its contents posted online. The group, which billed itself “Anonymous,” supposedly posted some of her private communications to expose what appeared to be her use of a personal account for government business. This included personal photos, the contents of several messages, the subject lines of dozens of e-mails and Palin’s e-mail contact list. 

Palin has been criticized for using a personal e-mail account to conduct state business. An Alaska activist has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking disclosure of e-mails from another Yahoo! account Palin used,  gov.sarah at yahoo.com.

Michael Allison, chief executive of the Internet Crimes Group, a private company specializing in Internet security, said the hackers may have accessed Palin’s account by using publicly available information to guess her password, or by using a program to capture her keystrokes. A hacker also might have sent a forged e-mail to her account tricking her into revealing her own password.

Of course, I must start by commenting on the immaturity of these hackers. You can dislike a candidate all you want, but don’t hack into his or her e-mail account. Apparently, it’s been known for months that Palin uses Yahoo! accounts to conduct government business. So what, really, do you accomplish by posting some apparently-innocuous messages online? If anything, it just drums up sympathy for Palin.

I’m left wondering: was there any good reason for Palin to be using Yahoo! for official business when she has a more properly secured e-mail address through her work? I don’t see it. Like most large organizations, I’m sure the Alaska state government must have a VPN or other such protocol in place to allow her to access her e-mail remotely. Would you be as brazen about transmitting business information as she has been? This strikes me as another example of Palin’s inexperience and/or overt flouting of the rules. I wonder if those in charge of IT at the White House are already having nightmares over the security snafus they may face if McCain and Palin are elected.

Here’s my bottom line: if Sarah Palin can’t be bothered to rely upon her secure, official e-mail address for conducting state government business, how can we feel confident that she’s going to properly protect information related to national security? I don’t want to live in fear that nuclear war codes are floating around through Yahoo!