what is electronic mail

what is electronic mail

Electronic mail is a system that delivers messages at electronic speed. In an organization with this capability, employees can send and receive messages over long distance in minutes or seconds. Electronic mail (email) is a system which allows messages to be sent between computers.

A message can be sent either to an individual or to any number of individuals who have access to the same network. In recent years, e-mail systems have been used increasingly to improve the timeliness, control and effectiveness of communication in modern offices, e-mail system has occupied a pivotal place in modern information technology. It has brought revolutionized changes in official/organizational communication and is significantly replacing the traditional communication media. It has brought cognitive, affective and behavioral impact upon the members of office. Interdepartmental integration and coordination within the office is greatly facilitated by computer-based communication system. In any office, e-mail is an effective means of communicating with right person at the right time.

One major advantage of e-mail over the telephone is that receiving party does not have to be present to receive the mail; the message is stored for future retrieval. Other advantages are as follows :
• One to many communication is simple and easily achievable
• Using e-mail, people can work at home or travel while maintaining needed contact with their peers, superiors and subordinates • It is very fast
• A message can be sent to many people at once
• It also leaves a written copy of messages that can be filed away or forwarded.


E-mail is convenience to busy executives, who are often pressed for time but need to communicate efficiently. Early forms of e-mail include telex, telegrams and mailgrams. The current technology is in two areas, networks of communicating word processors and computerized message switching (CMS). Word processors may be interconnected through telecommunication links which allow word processing files to be transmitted to remote locations. In this case, word processors serve as a part of e-mail system. In CMS (Computerized Message Switching) system electronic massages are sent over a computer network from a sender's standard CRT to a recipient's computer where they may be read immediately on a CRT or stored.

Communicating Word processor is a stand alone word processor that is linked to another stand alone (a shared system) or a large computer through communications links.

Basic Aspects of e-mail
Let us now briefly describe some basic aspects and services of and email system.

Composition
It refers to the process of creating messages and answers-e.g. when answering a message, the mail system can extract the originator's address from incoming mail and automatically inserts it into the proper place in the reply.

Transfer
It refers to moving messages from the originator to the recipient. The mail system should do this completely automatically, without bothering the user.

Reporting
Reporting has to do with telling the originator what happened to the message. Was it delivered? Was it rejected? Was it lost?

Conversion
It may be necessary to make message suitable for display on the recipients terminal or printer.

Formatting
It pertains to the form of displayed message on the recipients terminal. If the input file were to be transmitted by e-mail it would have to be reformatted at the receiving end to give it desired appearance.

Decomposition
It is the final step and concern what the recipients does with the message after receiving it. Possibilities include throwing it away immediately, reading it first then throwing it away, read it then saving it and so on. In addition to these basic services, an e-mail system generally provide a large variety of advanced features. Let us briefly mention a few of these.

• When the people move or when they are away for some period of time. They may want their mail forwarded so the system should be able to do this automatically.

• If some one has decided to take a vacation for a few weeks, he may not want his mail forwarded. Instead, he may want the mail system to send a canned reply to the originator of each incoming message saying that he is away and telling when he will return.

• Most mail systems allow users to create mailboxes to store incoming mail.

• When a message is sent to the distribution list (a list of e-mail addresses), identical copies are delivered to every one on the list.

• Registered mail is another idea to allow the originator to know that his message has arrived. Alternatively, automatic notification of undeliverable mail may be desired.

• Other advanced features are carbon copies, high priority mail, secret encrypted mail, alternative recipients if primary one is not available and the ability for secretaries to handle their boss’s mail.

Tweet