The Inventor of Email Is V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai – The Facts

So is networked messaging the same thing as "email"?

Shiva:

"What Tomlinson and the ARPANET (a predecessor of the Internet designed for the military) folks invented was a rudimentary form of text messaging at best. But I created EMAIL , the entire system replicating all the functions of the interoffice mail system (Inbox, Outbox, Folders, Attachments, Memo, etc.) -the email, we all know and experience today. Never did I use any component of the ARPANET to create this system." http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/ray-to...

Smithsonian:

"Exchanging messages through computer systems, what most people call “email,” predates the work of Ayyadurai. ... Many innovations are conceived independently in different settings. Historians who have documented the early history of electronic messaging have largely focused on the use of large networked computers, especially those linked to the ARPANET in the early 1970s. Ayyadurai’s story reveals a contrasting approach, focusing on communicating via linked computer terminals in an ordinary office situation. The system was localized, linking only three campuses rather than multiple large institutions. It was a small enterprise, rather than a big enterprise story." http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/statement-natio...