It's apples and oranges. Email, phone, IRC/Slack/Lync/Hipchat/Discord. They all have their own purposes. I don't think many companies are trying to replace emai

It's apples and oranges. Email, phone, IRC/Slack/Lync/Hipchat/Discord. They all have their own purposes. I don't think many companies are trying to replace email; just provide an alternative for times when email would be unnecessary and bulky. I like to think of email as the "ledger" or repository, while your IRC alternative is your working branch.