Unified Messaging (UM)

Early, primitive UM systems were actually nothing more than unified mail systems, which had the ability to store messages of all media types (voice, fax, e-mail, paging, etc.) in one mailbox (generally Microsoft Exchange) with accessibility from either a PC or telephone. Today however, The Unified Messaging Consortium (Warrington, PA 215-491-9966, www.unified-msg.com) defines unified messaging as the ability to create and respond to multimedia messages with fidelity to the originator from either a telephone or PC (especially across different vendor platforms). Additionally, personal call control permits realtime control of incoming calls and call rebound with message processing.

Unified messaging should not be confused with the even more sophisticated universal messaging which is defined as the ability to create any type of message and to send it to anyone without regard to the recipient s mailbox requirements. In such an ideal world you can receive or send any kind of message, any time, anywhere. It s technology that lets a user transmit voice, fax, pager and e-mail messages from a single point, and likewise to see a consolidated list on a PC or other device containing details on all types of incoming waiting messages.

UM isn t so much about the technology per se, as it is about using the technology to simplify your communications. So the message recipient is the key benefactor in unified messaging, since the caller doesn t know or even care if the recipient has a unified messaging mailbox.

The point of unified messaging is simplicity...