Grand Unification: Voice, Data An d Fax In One By David A. Zimmer Our communications have become critical. Not a day goes by that we don't have to process voicemail, faxes and e-mail. Yet each communication media is divorced from the other. We have no cross-functionality or easy way of collecting all forms into one place. Fortunately, several vendors are coming to our rescue by providing products that permit access to all messages regardless of interface. This class of products forms unified messaging--the unification of media and mailbox. Unification means that all message types--voice, fax, e-mail and any future forms--can be stored in one logical mailbox and can be accessed by telephone or PC. Users can learn one interface for all message types. The flexibility of using either phone or PC lets users pick the most convenient device for the situation. To view the Report card. Unified messaging differs from universal messaging. Unified messaging focuses on combining media types into one mailbox. Universal messaging, on the other hand, focuses on sending messages from the mailbox. With universal messaging, customers of one Regional Bell Operating Company can send a voice message to another Bell company's voicemail customer. The unified mailbox provides a full-featured repository for universal messaging. We tested six products that provide unified messaging. Each has a distinct way of supporting the functionality users need. Five of the vendors developed products for use inside companies, running across LANs. The sixth chose to develop its unified messaging product first for the public swit ched network, rather than as a customer premises equipment (CPE) product. Essentially, each product is three in one--voicemail, fax mail and e-mail. The trick is to provide all the functionality we have come to expect from standalone products while dealing with the complexities of making them work together seamlessly. After careful consideration, we gave top honors to Octel Communications Corp.'s Unified Messenger for ease of use and simplified administration. Digital Sound Corp.'s InfoMail Express 2.0, which runs in the public switched network, is another robust package. Our Hot Buttons We were looking for full unification and integration. The goal is for User A to communicate in a fashion most comfortable to him and User B to use her favorite method. The reply messages should be appropriately addressed, automatically. For example, User B should be able to retrieve a voice message using the PC, click a button and reply using e-mail. The originator's e-mail address should appear, and the r esponse should be returned. The user should be able to work from one interface and not be required to launch several programs to view or listen to a message. Since different media types have different needs, the controls may differ, but the overall sense of the interface should be consistent. From the administrative perspective, we looked for a single point of administration. The administrator should not have to repeat the dance done today: For new employees, a voicemail administrator creates a voice mailbox, the network administrator creates a network account, and the e-mail administrator creates an e-mail account. The three administrators must coordinate the information so that the directories are synchronized accordingly. Finally, we were very keen on remote functionality, especially with offline capabilities. Being nomadic workers, we viewed these products as if we were to buy and use them ourselves. We want to get away from the multiple message store in many places from which we suffer.

Updated March 7, 1997