Unified messaging

Options abound for melding voice mail, e-mail and faxes. Which deployment approach is best for you?

By Drew Robb
Network World, 08/20/01

There's no doubt that being able to access your voice mail, e-mail and faxes from a single in-box, regardless of how they were sent, is handy, but unified messaging has been a tough sell in the corporate world.

In some firms, upper management may not be eager to buy software, upgrade storage capacity and add sufficient bandwidth for a system that only promises to boost productivity in 10-second increments. Instead of 30 seconds to review a voice message, it's 20. Instead of having a colleague send a fax, you can open up the laptop, log on and view the document.

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Nevertheless, after a shaky start plagued with integration woes, unified messaging is making steady inroads. Unified messaging software pulled in $240 million last year, and the market will grow to $934 million by 2005, predicts Joe Gagan, a senior analyst for The Yankee Group. Factor in unified messaging hardware, infrastructure and installation costs, and the overall unified messaging market should top $6 billion by 2004, according to Pelorus Group.

Unified messaging is clearly gaining acceptance as a means of increasing productivity and profitability. But the technology may not be well-suited for all workers. Gagan says return-on-investment is highest for mobile workers in e-mail-centric companies. But for employees who work out of a single location, he regards unified messaging as nice rather than vital.

If your company is ready for unified messaging, there are three ways to deploy the technology - integrate it with your legacy environment, roll out a unified system, or go the hosted services route. Find out why a few early adopters chose the options they did.

Legacy integration

Integration, a formidable early stumbling block for unified messaging, is much improved in the current crop of products. Instead of peddling a whole new infrastructure to implement unified messaging, vendors are providing wares that integrate well with existing e-mail, voice mail, fax systems and telecom gear. After all, Microsoft and Lotus account for more than 100 million e-mail seats, and Avaya boasts 120 million voice mail boxes. Moreover, there are millions more e-mail and voice mail systems licensed by numerous competitors.

For example, Nortel's CallPilot lets users access voice mail, e-mail and faxes through e-mail, a Web browser or via phone using voice commands. The unified messaging software works with Qualcomm Eudora Pro, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange/Outlook, Netscape Messenger and Novell GroupWise e-mail packages; Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers; as well as 80% of existing PBXs.

CallPilot can act as a simple server-based voice mail system, or you can add modules to handle fax via e-mail, e-mail via voice mail, remote fax routing and other services. Pricing ranges from $200 to $1,000 per user depending on the type of installation and options selected.

The city of Richardson, Texas, implemented CallPilot along with a set of new phone switches. The basic architecture consists of two Nortel Meridian 61C phone switches and a Nortel CallPilot Windows NT server with a RAID 5 array linked by Fast Ethernet. When a user opens up Lotus Notes to view e-mail, a folder on the same screen contains voice mail traffic. By double-clicking on the message, the user hears the full message.

Because CallPilot uses Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM) - a standard for exchanging voice, e-mail and faxes between disparate systems via TCP/IP, integration is no longer the challenge it once was. "Previous versions of CallPilot certainly had some integration bugs, but the latest version had no integration issues at all," says Steve Graves, CIO for the city.

Graves hired Williams Communications to roll out the CallPilot system. It took three days to install and configure the CallPilot server, connect it to the phone switches and get everything working well. Deploying the desktop software took about 10 minutes per user.

The hardest part, Graves says, is determining who really needs the system. Although the city of Richardson purchased 500 licenses, only 100 are now in use while top management determines where to deploy unified messaging to maximize return.

Once a client is set up, voice mail messages are retrievable by phone or through e-mail. Graves prefers to use his computer, explaining, "Voice mail has too many menus, and I spend too much time finding, listening and then deleting messages."

The municipality also deployed optional capabilities such as fax and voice response. "We receive faxes and you see them in the voice mail folder," Graves says. "It's as simple as double-clicking on them, just like an e-mail message."

And the voice-response module lets users navigate through voice mail messages without using the phone keypad. However, Graves chose not to roll out a text-to-voice system, which would allow access to e-mail by phone, although he might deploy it to a small group of users.

Overall, the city of Richardson spent $125,000 for the CallPilot system - roughly $250 per seat. The investment generates savings of as much as 20 seconds per voice mail message. Multiply that by tens of thousands of messages per year and it soon adds up. Graves also anticipates reduced voice mail training costs. "The moment I load the [unified messaging system] client, most users are off and running without any training at all," he says.

Unified approach

While Nortel takes the route of integrating disparate legacy systems, competitors Avaya and Cisco take a unified approach to all communication needs. For example, Avaya builds its unified messaging products to work directly with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. This results in fewer options but greater administrative simplicity. "There is a big push to manage everything from one directory," Yankee's Gagan says.

In January, Avaya released Unified Messenger 4.0 for Microsoft Exchange 2000. UM 4.0 has the standard unified messaging user features - the ability to access, respond to and manage voice mail, e-mail and fax communications from a PC, telephone, wireless phone or over the Internet.

A big selling point with systems like UM 4.0 is the benefit of having a single messaging program and directory to administer. Because UM 4.0 supports Microsoft's Active Directory and Management Console snap-ins, you only need to use one interface to administer voice mail and e-mail.

"Administration of the system is simpler due to the integration with Exchange," says Doug Glasgow, CIO for the architectural design firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent in Atlanta. "I simply add an Exchange user and then click on the voice mail tab to add voice mail properties, or the fax tab to add fax properties. I don't have to do this through separate systems."

Having just one system also simplified training, support, and back-up and restore functions.

Although Lord, Aeck & Sargent already had e-mail and voice mail, people tended to use one or the other. Those who were more comfortable with the phone would handle their voice mail promptly, but not their e-mail. Those who preferred computers would do the opposite. They also had four fax machines, so there were problems with internal fax distribution.

When it came time to replace its central switchboard with direct dialing, the firm decided to integrate the three messaging systems. The new architecture consists of Microsoft Exchange 5.5, Avaya Unified Messenger 3, Feneastrae Faxination 3 and an Avaya Definity G3 PBX.

The new unified messaging system has been a boon to users who can choose to handle messaging tasks via the phone, e-mail or both. "If you use a [Research in Motion] BlackBerry pager device, the e-mails, voice mails or faxes will show up on the device right when you get them. [Unified messaging] also gives our clients the ability to send messages in any format and know that we can access them quickly and easily," Glasgow says.

He also appreciates message management functions that simplify collaboration. All messages regarding a project can be stored in a single file and shared among project members.

Although Glasgow declines to discuss the cost of the rollout, Unified Messenger costs about $75 per seat for the software and $50 to $70 for training and installation.

Hosted services

Another unified messaging strain that is propagating rapidly is hosted services from players such as Cingular Interactive, Openwave Systems and Unified Messaging. Unified messaging initially became popular with individual users, with some companies offering these services at no cost.

"Several companies that pioneered the free services trend have realized this is not the optimal business model, and are modifying their strategies accordingly," says Blair Pleasant, a Pelorus Group analyst.

She projects that the hosted segment of the market will grow from $167.4 million in 2000 to more than $2 billion in 2005; with the number of unified messaging subscribers going from 18.5 million in 2000 to more than 122 million by 2004.

Outsourcing is moving beyond the consumer market and is gaining popularity among businesses. Corporations like this model because it lets them off-load management, capacity planning and staffing challenges.

When Primerica Financial Services of Albuquerque, N.M., for example, wanted unified messaging, IT decided it would be too much trouble to install and maintain the system internally. The company chose the hosted route and settled on the Orchestrate 2000 service from Orchestrate.com.

Charles Whitener, Primerica's senior national sales director who championed the deployment, says it took 24 hours to get Orchestrate hooked up and operating throughout the company.

At a cost of $10 to $20 per month per user, Orchestrate saves some workers as much as two hours per day. As they commute to work or travel from location to location in the field, they use the system to handle e-mail and voice messages. Some use it to send group e-mails or faxes, as well as for impromptu conference calls. Orchestrate 2000 also includes text-to-speech functions.

While the past year or so has seen breakthroughs in unified messaging, expect to see more and better features. The industry is moving to the next generation of unified messaging - unified communications. "[Unified communication] embraces unified messaging plus real-time call control, collaboration, media handling, voice-enabled groupware capabilities and more," Pleasant says.

Avaya's Unified Messenger 4.0 is an early example of this emerging product category because it provides access to live communication, not just messages left by others. These features let users be contacted at different phones they designate (such as office, home or mobile), and also to receive notification when a particular call or e-mail message is received.

As unified messaging technology is now approaching the functionality envisioned when the concept first hit the market, more companies are embracing it. Many IT executives are adding it into the mix when an existing PBX or voice mail system needs upgrading. As more people enjoy the benefits of unified messaging, it's likely to become a standard communications tool within a few years.