Will Amazon's big-biz WorkMail be another Fire dud – or a Kindle?

Amazon Web Services wants to tout webmail to the business world.

It hopes to invade the enterprise email sector with a web-based service called WorkMail, and gobble up companies running Microsoft Exchange.

AWS said the off-premises, cloud-based software will provide email and shared calendars Desktop users can access it either in a browser or with Outlook, while iOS and Android devices will have dedicated apps to pull and send messages.

In addition to integrating with Outlook, the service will support Microsoft Active Directory. And AWS will offer migration tools for companies moving from on-premises servers.

Security is a bullet point in Amazon's list of reasons to switch to its new offering. AWS said WorkMail will integrate with the AWS Key Management service and the AWS Management Console. This will allow administrators to enforce security policies and remotely wipe data from devices.

AWS hopes that the platform fills the crowded gap between on-premises Exchange and webmail services for normal people.

"Customers have repeatedly asked us for a business email and calendaring service that is more cost-effective and simpler to manage than their on-premises solution, more secure than the cloud-based offerings available today, and that is backed by the same best-in-class infrastructure platform on which they're reliably running so many of their current (and future) workloads," argued AWS Compute Services vice president Peter De Santis.

AWS has set up a site where users can sign up for a preview of the service. We assume the web bazaar hopes WorkMail won't go the way of Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Wallet. On the other hand, the Kindles and cloud services aren't doing bad. ®

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