Unified Communications, Unified Messaging and Good Old Voice Mail
This is my first posting as a "Unified Communications
Expert", so it seems like a good moment to explain what I mean when I use
terms such as UC and UM. Some people whom I've talked with at TechEd and
other events were rather hazy about the differences between UC and UM, so there
seems to be a need to clarify it. In this posting I'll cover UM only, to
keep things brief.
Unified
Messaging (UM) is itself a rather nebulous term. Everyone seems to
agree on some of the characteristics of UM. Voice mail and e-mail are presented
together, visually, to the user in their mail client. There is an
over-the-phone interface to allow messages to be listened to, replied to and
deleted. Beyond that, there is little consensus. Should all messages be
contained in a common store? Should fax be supported, and how? How is
identity managed? And so on.
I'm happy to talk about Microsoft
Exchange Unified Messaging as "UM".
It's the product I work on, and it's the product I use every day. So, as
long as I'm careful to say "Exchange
UM" when there is any danger of confusion, I can clarify the underlying
principles and describe the features when I'm asked about it.
Exchange UM is packaged as one of the server roles in
Exchange 2010. (It was introduced in Exchange 2007). It has three
main feature areas:
- Voice Mail. The
basic call-answering functionality. If a user does not answer a call to
their phone, the call is eventually forwarded to a UM server. It answers,
and plays the user's greeting, such as: "Hello, this is Michael. I'm sorry I can't take your call. Please leave
a message. " The caller then hears a BEEP and records their
message for the user. UM arranges for the message to be delivered to the
user's Exchange Inbox. The user can listen to the message by using a mail
client such as Outlook or Exchange 2010 Outlook Web App (OWA), or by
using... - Outlook Voice Access. This provides a telephone interface to Exchange that works
for any phone. A user calls a
number that is answered by UM; they identify themselves to the system with
a sequence of touch tone keys. UM then tells them what's new, for
example: "You have 2 new voice
messages and 8 new e-mails... " What sets UM apart from older
voice mail and unified messaging systems is that users are able to access
not only voice mail and e-mail over the phone, but can also access
their calendar, and call or send voice messages to Personal Contacts or
other users. And they can do this with voice commands, because
speech recognition is enabled in all of Exchange 2010 UM's 26 language
packs. - Automated Attendant. Many companies want to provide telephone callers with a
convenient way of reaching their employees, even if the caller doesn't
know the employee's telephone number, but only the company's main
"switchboard" number. An Automated Attendant is a system that
answers the phone in such a case, prompts the caller, collects their input
and tries to direct their call to the correct person. Automated Attendants
are sometimes chained together to make multi-level menus. Exchange UM
allows the Automated Attendants to be speech-enabled, so that the caller
can simply say the name of
the person that they want to contact.
The architecture that underpins Exchange UM is true to the
"Unified" name. All messages are stored in Microsoft Exchange. All
messages are transported by Microsoft Exchange. All identities (and the vast
majority of configuration details) are managed by Microsoft Windows and Active
Directory. Administrators who already know Exchange will find a few new
concepts in UM, but they all relate to its connection to the world of telephony.
Much of UM will seem very comfortable to the Exchange administrator.
In my next post, I'll try to differentiate UM, now defined, from
UC. In later posts, I'll talk about Exchange UM's relationship to the
"world of telephony", and how to connect the two together.