Let's face it, we aren't giving up e-mail

I'm sure more than once in the last few years you've heard a product or service pitch that promises to enable your users to move away from reliance on e-mail for collaboration. Yes we all know the drill. E-mail is cumbersome, there's too much spam, not enough workflow management, and on and on. While collaboration applications such as wikis and shared workspaces are thriving, the reality is still that when it comes to collaboration, e-mail is still king no matter who rises up and attempts a coup.Now, a new wave of collaboration vendors is emerging that are trying to fix e-mail rather than replace it. I had the chance this week to see a demo of C-Mail, a start-up that aims to improve e-mail efficiency by providing prioritization of incoming e-mails based on learned or pre-configured behavior, along with the ability to tie e-mail to work flows (similar functionality is available from Xobini and Clear Context). Perhaps we're on the cusp of finally accepting the fact that e-mail isn't going away any time soon, and instead the time has come to look at ways of improving the application we all use?