How did email evolve from local to cloud-based systems?
Email moved from locally hosted servers and desktop clients to cloud based platforms in the early 2000s. Instead of every company maintaining its own mail server, providers hosted the infrastructure in large data centers and offered webmail access.
The catalyst for this shift was the launch of Gmail in 2004, with 1 GB of free storage. At the time, competitors offered 2 MB. Gmail's massive storage forced the entire industry to follow, starting what became known as the "storage wars."
It was like moving from small private docks to large international ports where maintenance, security, and uptime were handled by specialists.
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