If you use the term integrated messaging casually in average IT or
management circles, you are likely to see confused frowns or blank
looks. Yet the phrase has its roots in traditional mainframe IT,
and probably has more relevance today than ever before.
Formerly it was used to describe 'messaging hub' technology on the
mainframe, which allowed the transfer of messages between different
messaging technologies, and the synchronisation of e-mail contact
details between address books in different environments. So, if a
new employee was added to the Lotus Notes workgroup, he or she
could immediately access workgroups on internet mail, Exchange and
so forth, and would be automatically added to the address books of
these groups. In this context, integrated messaging has a long
history.
However, somewhat confusingly, the term has moved on, and is now
often being used interchangeably with unified messaging (UM)
technology, although the two are fundamentally different. In the
unified approach, voice, fax, and e-mail messages are stored on a
central server, while the integrated approach may have messages
arriving on several servers, but integrated on the desktop client
PC or other device. Tony Mulqueen, marketing communications
specialist with messaging provider Critical Path explains: 'In the
current definition, integrated messaging refers to the provision of
e-mail, fax, and voicemail over IP networks, with a single point of
access on the PC in the form of a web interface, or by a telephone
device.'
Another term is 'full UM', which sometimes has integration on
the desktop, but Mulqueen says that it is possible to distinguish
integrated messaging from 'full UM' on the basis that full UM comes
with all the bells and whistles of text-to-speech, speech-to-text,
and preferred mode of delivery, using a 'find-me-follow-me'
approach, mainly for a commercial market. However, other pundits
disagree, saying that there is no clear distinction between the
categories, and the phrase integrated messaging can be used as an
umbrella to embrace all.
'Integrated messaging means delivering everything from plain
e-mail to e-mail with attachments, streaming video and video
conferencing, e-commerce, CRM information, and voicemail all over
the same IP system,' says Mulqueen. 'This requires high bandwidth
and resilience, and until now the technology has not been widely
available.' It is also a technology which is on the threshold of
great expansion. Linda Busby, IBM's business integration marketing
manager, says: 'All the predictions and indicators are that
integrated messaging, which consolidates all types of messages into
one personalised access point, is the way forward for individuals
and applications.'
The most common interface for today's integrated messaging is
currently the desktop PC, but it is an important element of the
technology that the phone and mobile are empowered as alternatives.
As integrated messaging spreads, and as the technology becomes more
proven and robust, users are going to expect to be able to receive,
and send, all types of message from a single point.
Rod Lahiri, BT business information systems meridian 1 messaging
product manager says: 'What is important about integrated messaging
is not only the development of the underlying technology, but the
users' expectations to access all fax, voice, and e-mail messages
by any device, and be able to respond to them immediately.'
Integrated messaging over IP mean that future users will expect to
access all message types on standard, everyday mobile devices. They
can already log into their office network from any location, and
see a single 'in-box' that contains all their e-mails, voicemails,
pager messages, faxes, and video messages. New integrated messaging
technologies allow users to play back voicemails using the PC or
laptop speakers of a Voice over IP telephone handset connected to
their computer, and receive messages which comprise embedded
elements of many forms of messaging.
The benefits of both integrated and unified messaging are better
connectivity services, lower costs, and a single point of billing.
The impact of this can be particularly dramatic in an international
organisation which has overseas offices or sales teams. Mulqueen
says: 'It is dramatically cheaper and easier to access voicemail
and fax over long distances by IP technology. It can be the
difference between a few dollars for the hire of a web browser in a
business centre, to hundreds of pounds for transmitting faxes, and
long distance telephone access to voicemail.' Busby adds: 'The
business benefits of assured once only delivery to a convenient
location or device will be irresistible.'
Firms which should particularly be looking at integrated
messaging are those that operate in several disparate locations, or
those with a mobile and dispersed salesforce, or those who deal
with customers and suppliers abroad. Specific productivity gains
include the ability to respond more rapidly to messages, delivering
increased worker efficiency and speed. Messages will chase the
user, rather than the other way around.
Ironically, the single point of contact can also be a
disadvantage. Mulqueen says: 'If your integrated service goes down,
all your eggs are in one basket.' It can be hard to move between
providers, although this is a plus for the providers, and some
providers operate premium numbers that make it costly for your
contacts to reach you. Security becomes an even more important
issue, especially as one system can be used for information based
services, integrated messaging services, and transaction based
services from a single platform. With multimedia access to all
media sharing the same database, directory, and other server
resource, the system can be more vulnerable to a backdoor weakness,
which allows a malcreant or hacker in to create havoc.
Although a lot of integrated messaging services are free,
adoption may require you to change your telephone number, and you
may not be able to record your own greeting on some services, which
can be off-putting for users and customers. But the convenience and
some of the fancy features can be extremely interesting to managers
seeking to streamline their employees working processes or find a
unique marketing differential.
However, some systems are over-functioned, and more complex than
necessary. This can be avoided by the judicious use of a closely
defined wish list at the specification and purchasing stage.
Remember that in the early stages of a new marketplace like
integrated messaging there is a tendency to emphasise the number of
features available in products coming to market, their vast
capabilities and cool tools, while systems which have less
features, but which are well proven, may prove to be more
satisfactory. l
Quality of service
When one system is used to send and receive all messages, its
importance grows and reliability becomes a key issue. Tim Beard,
EMEA marketing manager with Sitara says that as e-mail grows into a
complex service, and other demands are put on the IP network and
integrated messaging takes on greater importance, the strain on the
technology and network will increase dramatically. He says, 'IP was
never designed to carry multiple traffic types with greatly varying
requirements in bandwidth and latency. We need to add a layer of
intelligence to cope with conflicts and clashes. Quality of Service
is the first step in achieving this.'
Quality of Service (QoS) delivers techniques which intelligently
match the needs of specific applications to the network resources
available, allocating business critical applications the necessary
priority and bandwidths. Beard says, 'The key to ensuring that all
demands and application requirements are met is by controlling the
bandwidth pipes.' He continues, 'There has to be 'fairness' between
data flows. It is not sufficient to just allocate a certain amount
of bandwidth to each traffic class - that is too general. One must
also ensure that each user sees the same performance as other
users, and the responsiveness of the system is constant and
consistent.'
To solve this and other network management problems created by
integrated messaging, Sitara has developed its QoS Appliance. Beard
explains, 'QoS is seen as a black art by many network managers, but
a tool like QoSWorks makes integrated messaging implementations
quick and simple to set up and maintain. QoS helps avoid the
expensive and over ineffective 'solution' of over-provisioning. It
uses a full set of traffic control and caching techniques that fix
the network manager's traffic problems so making the network
managers life easier and gives a better service, while enabling the
company to move more easily into the world of e-business.'
The technology
The integrated messaging market is already huge and burgeoning,
with a great range and variety of suppliers and solution providers
battling to establish themselves. Some analysts expect a growth by
a factor of 20 in the next 12 months. However, many deployments are
still at the pilot stage, and there is still a sense of the
experimental and beta about many products and solutions.
Most of the smart money is on a 12 month wait, to see how the
technology develops. Next year will also see big jumps in
bandwidth, which will permit real-world integrated messaging, but
it is currently still an early adopter market.
As different traffic types are consolidated into a single
delivery platform, with a single server and all delivered over the
IP network, the stress on the network increases. Different traffic
types, from plain e-mail to video conferencing, have different
requirements in terms of bandwidth, and, even more crucially,
latency sensitivity. E-mails and faxes are not latency sensitive,
and e-mails with attachments can take up a large amount of
bandwidth. But voice is very delay and latency sensitive, and
variable delays can cause poor voice quality. Using one network for
e-mail, web access, file transfer, and videoconferencing will, with
current technology, lead to delay variations and transmission
problems, which will manifest themselves in the most obvious and
high profile services, such as videoconferencing.
While current technology allows for the seamless integration of
text and speech messages, future developments in voice recognition
(IVR), OCR (optical character recognition), and GSM (global system
for mobiles) data rates will allow solutions with further
integration and video/graphical enhancements. Text will be
automatically transformed into speech and vice versa. The ways that
these solutions can be used are still being developed, but the
clich‚ is probably true that applications are currently limited
only by the imagination of the developers and users.
Growth and costs
Predictions for integrated messaging are dramatic. For example,
Frost & Sullivan predicts that the total market for messaging
will have a compound annual growth rate of 71 per cent until 2003,
exceeding $4bn by 2005.
Many of the estimates are based on current and predicted e-mail
use, with the expectation that e-mail users will want to move to a
consolidated messaging approach. IDC estimates that e-mail use will
increase by 25 per cent annually until 2005, and The Gartner Group
estimates that 15 per cent of e-mails are currently outsourced, but
that figure is likely to rise to 65 per cent by the end of 2001.
Recent research also suggests that the typical business user
receives an average of 45 e-mails each day, and sends an average of
20 each day, and will be seeking some form of message consolidation
to simplify their lives. Over a year the average business user will
send and receive over 16,000 e-mails, and for an organisation with
5,000 employees the total sum is over 81 million e-mails a year.
Many firms which now manage their own e-mail, and other messaging,
will start to outsource, to ensure an end-to-end service, and to
ensure integrity, and to have the power to demand reliability.
Business 2.0 estimates that the costs of outsourced e-mail are
between £3 and £5 per month per user, compared with the £250 to
£300 per year. The cost of adding other messaging types to e-mail
is negligible.
The solutions
IBM's MQ Series has been connecting business software and
enabling applications to exchange information between multiple
platforms for more than 10 years. This can include mobile
telephones and PDAs as well as desktop and portable PCs, and covers
over 35 platforms with more being announced all the time. The
latest version of MQSeries is Everyplace for Windows, which gives
mobile and pervasive devices reliable transactional and messaging
capabilites.
Two other leading integrated messaging products are CallExpress3
from AVT and Unity from Active Voice. Earlier this year, Frost
& Sullivan identified AVT as a leading independent messaging
solution provider with a 15 per cent market share.
There are many other outstanding solutions too. For example,
Siemens Xpressions 470 allows users to choose and change their
preferred medium to send and receive and reply to messages. Voice,
fax, e-mail and video messages can be accessed, sent and received
using fixed and mobile phones, PCs or fax machines. All types of
messages sent are stored in a common inbox for simple and efficient
complex message management. Xpressions 470 also allows users to
blend message formats using 'message morphing' technology to create
'compound messages'.' The Siemens technology also features video
message streaming technology, which allows users to record and send
video messages across the network using cameras attached to their
PCs.
Some vendors are offering add-on products, such as Primus'
Interchange which gives chat facilities to web pages. Some vendors
come from an IT background, while others like Ascom come from a
telecom perspective. Mike Ballentine, Ascom's product manager says,
'It is possible with such products as the Ascom Call Centre to
deliver full integrated messaging by unifying a PBX system with a
Windows NT server. This gives a single point of contact for all
office communications.' Veritas Software's Messaging solution is
also typical of the next generation product, integrating all
messaging types so that they can be accessed from many varied
devices.