Yesterday Amazon unveiled WorkMail, a brand new product which offers email and calendaring services for corporate customers. The aim is for WorkMail to overtake Gmail and Outlook as the platform from which the company's corporate customers organise their emails and their work lives. The technology behind it is based on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) suite, and is looking to beat out the standard bearers when it comes to use of use and security. The service will be launching in the second quarter of the year, and will offer many of the same services as its rivals (shared calendars and mailboxes, a global address book and resource booking for meeting rooms and shared spaces), only with a greater emphasis on security.
The technology behind WorkMail is based on Amazon's Web Services suite
The service is compatible with most existing client software (including Outlook), which means it should prove pretty simple for single users and companies to migrate over to the new platform. Indeed, WorkMail will allow workers to continue using clients that they’re familiar with, as Amazon’s service focuses mostly on the “Behind the scenes” action. Pricing is competitive at just $4 per inbox per month (with each inbox offering up to 50GB), but at this early stage, it's unclear exactly how Amazon's offering sets itself apart from the competition. There's also the fact that both Microsoft and Google's services offer lots of additional features such as access to each company's bespoke software suites, features that Amazon is simply unable to offer (at least for the time being).
The service is compatible with most existing client software
The one area in which it's clear Amazon's service has the upper hand is in security, as it's been revealed WorkMail will be incorporating the online retail giant's Key Management Service, which allows information the be encrypted with keys supplied either by the user or by Amazon. The KMS also allows companies to select exactly where their information is stored geographically, which can lead to lower latency and greater peace of mind, especially amongst larger companies. It also offer a “Feature-rich” web-base client that users will be able to access without any software. AWS executive Adam Selipsky, said that “Customers are not happy with their current email solution,” with many of them feeling solutions such as Outlook and Gmail to be too “Expensive and complex.”
The one area in which it's clear Amazon's service has the upper hand is in security
The announcement of this new service proves that Amazon are certainly looking at AWS as more than simply a cloud-computing service, and it could act as a perfect introduction for many users and businesses to everything AWS has to offer. The recently launched WordDocs (previously known as Zocalo) is particularly useful, with users given a 200GB storage block for just an extra $2 a month. WorkSpaces too, is a very useable virtual desktop that can be accessed remotely via laptops and tablets. In all it looks like a compelling package, and certainly warrants a closer look as the story develops.
