Atos opens new HQ, targets 'zero e-mail' within 3 years

At the inauguration of IT services group Atos Origin's new headquarters in Bezons, near Paris, CEO Thierry Breton announced his plans for Atos to become a "zero e-mail" company within three years, reports Les Echos. Although e-mail is a formidable tool, the volume of e-mails sent and received is not sustainable in the workplace, he said. According to Atos, an employee spends between 10 and 20 hours a week reading and replying to e-mail at work or at home. In 2010, its workers were receiving an average of 200 e-mails a day, 18 percent of which were spam. The company expects employees to continue to use e-mail to communicate externally, but internally will use collaboration tools such as Office Communicator, which combines instant messaging, web conferencing and webphone. They will also increasingly rely on document storage solutions and in-house social networking. Breton added that new recruits favour such networks over e-mail to exchange information.