A week without e-mail is more traumatic than moving house or getting divorced, say techies.
The findings come in a survey of information technology managers for the software storage firm Veritas which looked at how businesses have become dependent on e-mail.
Electronic mail is playing such a key role in companies that most people start to get annoyed after just 30 minutes without e-mail access, the study found.
But spare a thought for the techies in computer support. About a fifth feared for their jobs if they did not get the e-mail system back up and running within a day.
More than 800 techies in Europe and the Middle East were quizzed about the role of e-mail for the survey.
“E-mail has become far more than a communication tool, placing a huge responsibility on organisations to ensure that e-mail is always available,” said Mark Bregman of Veritas.
“When information technology managers fail to keep the systems running, they inhibit the ability of the entire organisation to conduct business.”
