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The Future of Unified Messaging
Format: Spiral-Bound, 187 pages
ISBN: 0-933217-69-2
Price: [an error occurred while processing this directive]
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| Overview · Table of Contents · Contributor · Features · Who Should Read This Report |
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OVERVIEW
Unified messaging (UM) offers a great opportunity for service providers, software developers, and manufacturers. Simply observing today's messaging applications suggests one of the most compelling arguments for conversion from traditional to unified messaging: There has been a tremendous increase in the number of messages that professionals receive, including voice, fax, and e-mail messages. Because workers travel more, work from home, and depend on their mobile phones, pagers, and handheld devices, UM has enormous potential in today's market.
More than one billion personal messages between individuals or groups arrive daily through mailboxes, answering machines, and PCs in U.S. homes. This number does not include the number of messages being received in the corporate world. However, the reality today is that there are only about 100,000 UM users. The movement to UM will happen rapidly and very soon once users realize the benefits of this new and exciting technology.
As with answering machines and car and portable phones, users will go through several phases of adoption of the new messaging medium: from resistance and reluctance to acceptance and enthusiasm. At present, UM remains in its infancy. Nevertheless, it is expected that UM will take off and achieve its booming phase in 2003.
To help network service providers, IT managers, and enterprise network operators meet the opportunities and demands posed by UM services, the International Engineering Consortium has published The Future of Unified Messaging. This report critically examines the technology capabilities of current UM solutions and the potential of UM as a key value-added application for service providers. It also examines UM as a central productivity tool for enterprise end users of all varieties.
Key questions that are addressed by this report include the following:
- What is the current status of standards for UM?
- What are the three major phases that a corporation should follow if it intends to deploy UM?
- What types of service providers benefit from UM?
- What sort of vendor should be the main provider of UM technology?
- What are the hardware and software techniques used to achieve reliable, fault-tolerant UM systems?
- What are the cross-messaging technologies of UM systems?
A Growing Market
The target markets for UM products and services are very broad and include individuals, small offices/home offices (SOHO), and small, medium, and large companies. Today, the best targets for UM systems and services are medium-sized companies (500 to 3,000 employees). However, there are still a number of implementation issues and hurdles to overcome. One critical issue is selection of the migration path from the current messaging system to the UM system. This report examines these impediments to growth and explores the optimum strategies that service providers of all types can utilize to overcome them.
Opportunities for Service Providers
Many network operators have recently announced their intention to provide UM services for business and carrier markets. The reasons behind such activity include increased competition, converging networks, and customer acquisition and retention. Indeed, the migration of the PSTN to an IP–based, packet-switched network broadens the horizon for UM as never before. The Future of Unified Messaging examines opportunities for communications providers and end users alike and highlights how each can profit from the deployment and usage of UM services.