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Size Does Matter

Of course, not all enterprises are created equal. Small companies may want a comprehensive UM service where voicemail and e-mail servers are maintained on the service provider's site. And, hosted services provide low entry costs for messaging services--SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) don't need to purchase and maintain the hardware and software necessary to run UM, and they don't need the technical expertise and sheer manpower required to administer and maintain these systems. They could also receive the benefit of a low subscription cost because service providers can leverage a large subscription base to reduce their TCO and provide cost-effective services.

But with the benefits, there are burdens.

Outsourcing follows natural laws. That is, the more you give, the less you have. A hosted UM service not only controls your voice and e-mail servers, but also your messages until they are moved to a local e-mail server. This makes messages difficult to retrieve should the lights go out for the provider. Also, service providers will not introduce new features until they see a guaranteed rate of return among all the subscribers. This may inhibit the introduction of new features as they become available and reduce the amount of integration and customization of UM with enterprise resources. On the other hand, outsourcing messaging services can facilitate mobile professionals' access to UM. Rather than accessing the corporate LAN/WAN for services, road warriors can retrieve and send multimedia messages within the carrier's wireless or wire-line network.

A hosted service is unlikely to fill the bill for large enterprises with investments in PBX, e-mail and directory services. For them, a managed service is the way to go, if at all.

Open Minded

The hallmark of the new generation of UM products is open standards and integration. That is, they integrate with your network infrastructure and leverage enterprise resources such as your directory and message store. To get the full benefits of UM in a managed outsourcing arrangement, carriers must integrate with critical enterprise resources and secure data to make them available to employees and customers through telephone interfaces and speech-enabled applications. How carriers handle security and data integrity will be a paramount concern.

Implementing UM is easy compared with provisioning the services and applying rate information for billing purposes. For example, most carriers provision services from a subscriber account identification number tied to the principle device used to receive service: the telephone. Telephone numbers are assigned to a location or switch. Billing information is generated from usage based on service levels and other factors, such as time of day and destination. Today, an account ID may have more than one device that accesses services, for example a landline as well as a wireless telephone, pager and PDA. With UM, each of these devices may have separate rate information, and costs may be reflected in air time for wireless access or packets/bytes for voice messaging. In addition, usage and billing information may come from a variety of systems and formats. This information needs to be collected and presented to customers in standardized form. Moreover, customers need to fully understand this information and the technology to determine if their ROI is measuring up.

Any new enterprise technology requires some user training and education. Carriers need to make their services "simple and smart" for end users. In many organizations, for example, only a handful of employees ever make it beyond the basics of checking their voicemail. To get the full benefit of UM, enterprise customers will need training as well as easy-to-use telephone and computer interfaces to configure advanced messaging functions and follow-me features. Otherwise, you may be adding an unnecessary layer of complication to an indispensable enterprise resource.

Sean Doherty is a technology editor and lawyer based at our Syracuse University Real-World Labs®. A former project manager and IT engineer at Syracuse University, he helped develop centrally supported applications and storage systems. Write to him at sdoherty@nwc.com.