Avaya launches voicemail server with convergence features

Avaya this week launched version 2.0 of its Modular Messaging voicemail platform, with unified messaging features and support for more users on an IP-based server.

The new messaging software allows end users with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes e-mail clients to access Avaya Modular Messaging voicemail in their inboxes. The platform also allows for Web-based voicemail access, as well as new voice-activated message retrieval.

Avaya Modular Messaging 2.0 runs on a Linux-based Intel server and can support up to 20,000 users. A Modular Messaging server can support voicemail for clients in remote offices via an IP WAN link, as well as end users inside a main corporate office. The messaging platform works with either Avaya IP PBX or legacy PBX phone switches.

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Avaya this week launched version 2.0 of its Modular Messaging voicemail platform, with unified messaging features and support for more users on an IP-based server.

The new messaging software allows end users with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes e-mail clients to access Avaya Modular Messaging voicemail in their inboxes. The platform also allows for Web-based voicemail access, as well as new voice-activated message retrieval.

Avaya Modular Messaging 2.0 runs on a Linux-based Intel server and can support up to 20,000 users. A Modular Messaging server can support voicemail for clients in remote offices via an IP WAN link, as well as end users inside a main corporate office. The messaging platform works with either Avaya IP PBX or legacy PBX phone switches.

Modular Messaging includes a software plug-in for client PCs, which allows voicemail to be integrated with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes clients. This lets voicemail be sent to an end user as an e-mail attachment. This differs from Avaya’s Unified Communicator, which keeps voicemail and e-mail storage on the same server, and integrates voicemail and e-mail into scheduling and other applications.

“The Outlook plug-in is excellent,” says Beth Seymour, senior project manage for voice network services at AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan. “It’s great having everything in one interface” for accessing messages.

The Philadelphia company plans to upgrade its legacy Intuity Audix voicemail system with Modular Messaging 2.0 over the next several months to support 1,100 employees. Over the next several years, the company will extend the voicemail support to other sites throughout Pennsylvania, supporting several thousand more users. AmeriHealth will deploy two Windows-based application servers for running the Modular Messaging application, for redundancy, and a Linux-based Avaya server for message storage.

Seymour says the system offers back-end administrative pluses as well as client-facing improvements. “The interface is all point-and-click, instead of command-line,” for administering voicemail, as was the case on the Audix system. Since the servers are standard Intel boxes, Seymour anticipates that upgrading disks for storage and other hardware will be less expensive than it was with the proprietary Audix hardware.

Avaya competes with traditional telephony vendors such as Alcatel, Nortel, NEC and Siemens, which offer server-based IP voicemail messaging products. Cisco and 3Com also offer corporate voicemail systems for their respective IP PBX systems. 

Avaya Modular Messaging costs between $50 and $100 per seat and is available now.