Mobile email is taking over. Of emails that are opened, 51 percent are opened on mobile devices, observes Litmus. This is an all-time high. At the same time, webmail opens have dropped by more than a third in the last year, to just 18 percent of opens. Customers want to interact with email at their convenience … wherever they happen to be.

A second change is also at play. While consumers are communicating via text, instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to accomplish tasks once reserved for email – driving the overall consumer email sent down 4 percent — current predictions have business-oriented emails growing more than 13 percent in the coming years.

Why the discontinuity? Those who predict a wholesale shift away from email to some form of instant messaging miss that these technologies are not the same – especially for the business user. Both are valuable…