Seventy percent of all professionals will be using e-mail pushing devices by year end according the results of a survey released this week. Visto Corporation, a company RIM has tangled with in the past over patent infringements, published the findings of a survey it commissioned late last year to identify those mavens who drive the desire for mobile e-mail adoption. Based on the research, Visto predicts that market penetration of mobile e-mail could reach as high as 70 percent of professionals by the end of the year.

The survey polled business professionals who rely on e-mail at their desk in the UK, Spain and the United States.

Almost 60 percent of those surveyed admitted that, just a year ago, they regarded mobile e-mail as solely the domain of “the elite within their organizations,” or “too expensive,” or “limited to a few special devices’ such as BlackBerries. But the survey indicated that those attitudes have changed drastically in the last 12 months, with 70 percent believing that the service had become less exclusive, more affordable and with far greater device choice.

While only 40 percent of those surveyed were currently using mobile e-mail, half of those had begun to in the last year, and a further 30 percent believed they would begin to use the service in the next three to 12 months.
The research also showed evidence that choice was the overriding factor behind the surge in uptake.

Of those currently using the service, only 15 percent were doing so, because they had been instructed by their companies. Mobile executives appeared to be voluntarily using the technology, and specifically mobile e-mail, to increase their ability to manage both work and personal commitments.

The desire to balance work and life was emphasized by the fact that the largest number of people - 31 percent - were attracted by the ability to get work and personal e-mail on one device.