Email remains a critical business operations tool for organisations of all sizes, but the need for enhanced functionality is driving corporate email migrations, both to the cloud and to Exchange 2013 or other newer versions of Exchange on-premises.

However, a survey commissioned by Dell Software and conducted by Dimensional Research shows that while email collaboration is viewed as critical to business operations, a fear of data loss or corruption keeps many respondents from migrating to cloud email.

“Email is still the lifeblood of communication within an organisation, which means you simply can’t afford downtime or data loss during a migration," says Michael Tweddle, senior director, product management, Dell Software.

"Our email migration solutions make the migration process simpler and safer, mitigating the risk of data loss and ensuring there is no impact on users during the migration.”

Results of “The State of Corporate Email,” a survey of more than 200 IT professionals with responsibility for administration, implementation, or architecture of corporate email systems at companies with more than 1000 employees, reveals the following key findings:

* 81 percent of respondents say email is more important for employee communication than other collaboration tools

* On-premises email collaboration is still prevalent, with 86 percent of respondents still hosting email locally, some in combination with cloud email

* Cloud email adoption is growing, with 46 percent of responding organisations using a SaaS or cloud-based email solution

* Of those respondents not currently using a cloud-based solution, 43 percent are evaluating cloud options

* Of those who have not migrated to cloud-based email, 59 percent of respondents say concerns surrounding data loss are keeping them out of the cloud, and cite the need for high data fidelity and minimal downtime as key elements for a successful migration.