InformationWeek

June 14, 1999

Unified Messaging

Products and services promise simpler all-in-one message systems

By Brian Riggs and Mary E. Thyfault

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endors are introducing offerings that make it easier to deploy and manage unified messaging--systems that let users access E-mail, voice mail, and faxes from a common "in-box." The concept has been proposed before, but businesses have been slow to adopt it. Is that about to change?

The new products and services make it easier for businesses to link phone, voice mail, E-mail systems, and fax machines, and, in turn, make all types of messages accessible in a variety of ways, including through Web browsers, E-mail clients, personal digital assistants, and phones.

Microsoft last week said it will include a "unified message store" in the next release of its Exchange E-mail platform. Exchange has supported unified messaging for three years, but the new Exchange server, code-named Platinum and in beta testing, will be able to connect to most standards-based voice-mail systems and more effectively store both voice mail and E-mail.

Also last week, Nortel Networks Ltd. said its CallPilot Unified Messaging System, which integrates voice and fax messaging with Lotus Notes and Exchange, will be integrated with Platinum in order to let network administrators manage a single E-mail and voice-mail storage platform and directory from Exchange. Active Voice Corp. started shipping Unity 2.0, a unified messaging server that runs on Exchange. And Intersis Corp. released Voice for Microsoft Exchange, a unified messaging infrastructure that can integrate PBXs with Exchange and is supported by 50 equipment vendors, including Lucent Technologies and Siemens.

Products and services that consolidate different types of messages onto a single platform have been available for years, but most IT departments continue to use separate systems to handle E-mail, voice mail, and fax. "Right now, voice mail pretty much runs itself. The pains of trying to bring different messaging platforms together would be too great," says Reid Engstrom, director of IS at Harley-Davidson Motor Co. in Indianapolis, which this month started implementing Microsoft Exchange as its E-mail platform.

But Engstrom says he may be tempted to take another look at unified messaging. "We have a large sales group and a lot of people who move between facilities," he says. "Providing the ability to access all their messages with one call would be great."

The market for unified messaging is poised for growth. Sales of unified messaging software, hardware, and services were $329 million last year, according to Frost and Sullivan. The research firm predicts sales will grow to more than $1 billion in 2000 and hit nearly $5 billion by 2005.

Road Appeal
Unified messaging has the greatest appeal to mobile workers who spend at least 20% of their time on the road, and smaller companies that don't have a big investment in a phone system, says Steve Markman, CEO of General Magic Inc., which began offering its Portico unified messaging service 10 months ago. The company last week added the capability to compose an E-mail message from a phone and forward it as an E-mail file. The service can also call a user's telephone to notify him or her that certain E-mails or faxes have arrived, or save voice-mail messages into a folder.

Some unified messaging systems let mobile users access faxes while traveling, check voice mail and E-mail by dialing a single number, and even have E-mail read to them over the phone. Doug Crawford, director of network and telephony planning for Kaiser Permanente, a health maintenance organization, says single-line access to multiple types of messages can be convenient for mobile users. "If they get a page, they have to log off their E-mail to call in and check their voice mail. Then they have to boot their E-mail back up," Crawford says. "It isn't a very efficient way to work."

For some companies, integrating voice and E-mail systems has boosted productivity and provided easy access to messages where, when, and in the format required by mobile, remote, and in-office users. David Holeman, CIO of insurance company Viaticus Inc., says his office workers save 45 minutes a day "because they don't have to spend their time cycling blindly through their voice-mail boxes."

Viaticus has deployed Lucent's Unified Messenger on Exchange, which makes voice-mail messages available through Exchange's E-mail client, to all 40 users in its Chicago offices. Holeman says the move has cut IT and call-center costs and improved client service. The unified in-box lets client service reps easily and visually identify voice mail left for them by key customers. When clients leave a voice-mail message, the message appears as an E-mail file attachment and indicates who the message is from.

As a result of productivity gains, Viaticus cut its call-center staff in half and eliminated a $100,000 IT manager position that was required when voice-mail and E-mail platforms were separate. "We've been able to reduce the size of our call center and still meet our client's service expectations," Holeman says.

But there are still some technical objections to unified messaging. "Downloading everything is not viewed as a positive when you are on the road," says Stuart Brogan, VP of the Internet research and investment group at investment banker BancBoston Robertson Stephens. "It's also a single point of failure, so if there is a problem with our E-mail system we're pretty much hosed."

Brogan says Microsoft's recent announcement to strengthen its unified messaging software won't speed his deployment of unified messaging. "We would be too much on the bleeding edge," he says. "As soon as we see wide-scale adoption in our industry, we'll be all over the idea."

In addition, large companies generally don't have a single voice-mail and a single E-mail system that can be easily upgraded, replaced, or integrated by unified messaging software. "We're still trying to get to a single E-mail in-box, much less a unified one," says a network architect at a large retailer, who asked not to be identified. The company, which supports thousands of users in hundreds of offices, has multiple network-, mainframe-, and Web-based E-mail platforms. It also has many different types of telephone switches, some of which support unified messaging. It's struggling to integrate the complex environment.

Holeman at Viaticus agrees that having a variety of equipment and systems can make unified messaging more difficult: "You can easily do it if all users are on the same kind of server," he says. "But if they are all on different types of systems, it is almost a practical impossibility."

The Outsourcing Alternative
An alternative approach is to use outsourced messaging services, a strategy that's expected to appeal to companies unable or unwilling to deploy unified messaging themselves. Sprint said last week it's reselling dotOne Corp.'s managed messaging services, which include integrated fax and telex. By the middle of next year, dotOne expects to offer a messaging service that supports existing company voice-mail systems. The service, which will be marketed by Sprint, will provide directory synchronization among a variety of E-mail systems, access-control systems, and directory services.

Sprint and Microsoft last week also unveiled Communication Solutions for Small Business, an outsourced messaging service that combines Exchange unified messaging software and voice services through a PBX, as well as installation and communications services.

Despite the advantages offered by unified messaging systems and services, many companies seem inclined to stay with their separate E-mail, voice-mail, and fax systems for the foreseeable future. For those companies, unified messaging is a solution in search of a problem.