United Front Don't look now--you may soon be able to have all types of messages coming into a single inbox.
By Mike Hogan
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
What if your voice mail, faxes, e-mail and instant messages weredelivered to the same inbox? That would be a good thing-especiallyif you could pick just the message types and interface youwanted.
It's called unified messaging (UM) or unified communications(UC), and it's not new. It has been tried for years withlimited success. That's going to change.
Researchers say spending on UC will increase by a factor of 10by 2008, as the number of blended inboxes grows about 500 percent.By then, says market research firm The Radicati Group, as many as95 million folks worldwide will be able to pick up some combinationof messages from a universal inbox. By the way, that solves anotherproblem, adds Radicati market analyst Teney Takahashi: jugglingdifferent address books.
The convenience and productivity benefits of a universal inboxare obvious, but it's likely to develop in fits and starts. Onereason is that voice, fax and pages are still mostly analog forms.The rapid uptake of cellular and VoIP networks that automaticallyconvert them into digital packets helps. So do other recentimprovements.
"In the past, network and device limitations have been akey barrier," says Takahashi. "The increased bandwidth ofwireless networks and advanced functionality of mobile devicescreate an ideal environment."
On the other hand, every day seems to bring a new messagingoption to integrate-different IM systems, e-mail forwarded tohandhelds, different combinations of voice mail, e-mail and SMStext on handhelds. Each demands its own set of front-end clients,back-end servers, operating systems and communicationprotocols.
It helps to have end-to-end control, as IP-PBX vendors do. Avayablends voice mail and e-mail with text-to-speech software somessages can be retrieved by any phone or computer. Also, broadbandinternet connectivity is making it possible to house all inboxes onsome distant web server capable of high-volume messageprocessing.
Verizon's new iobi Home service combines voice mail, e-mailand addresses accessible over a wireline or wireless phone, or aninternet-connected computer. Launched in New England, the$8-per-month service is being rolled out nationwide and will bejoined by a business version, iobi Professional.
A similar new service from SBC Communications, called Unified Communications,adds faxes and text-to-speech technology for listening to e-mailsand fax headers over the phone, or voice mails on your computer.It's available in Southwestern states for $8 to $13 per month,depending on your area and messaging options.
