January 1998

BY RICH TEHRANI

The New Year: A time to look ahead, to make plans of action and resolutions for the coming year. In much the same way that now is the time for personal resolutions such as getting organized, or promising to get in shape, now is a great time to make resolutions for our business lives as well. What could be better than getting our businesses organized and in shape?

The articles featured in CTI magazine often offer compelling reasons to implement specific technologies. Our goal is to provide our readership, which consists of MIS and telecom departments, resellers, developers, telcos, and ISPs, with the information and guidance they need to get started in the business of implementing or reselling CTI.

We pride ourselves on having the most in-depth product reviews of any telecommunications magazine. Tremendous resources have been devoted to developing a testing lab staffed by engineers who test the individual products — products that bridge the telecom and datacom worlds. Setup, installation, documentation, operational testing, and room for improvement are part of just about every review that CTI publishes. No other telecom magazine provides you with these vital details of a product’s inner workings including not only the product’s strengths, but its weaknesses as well. Only a few computer magazines offer such coverage. We have pioneered this type of indepth testing in the telecom industry.

We have made this significant investment in our testing process to provide our readers with the tools and information they need to determine which products suit their needs and which products solve their problems. As an individual, you can’t keep track of all the products in the industry. Our reviews help resellers, developers, and purchasers make buying decisions by providing valuable information available nowhere else.

Our engineers see a tremendous number of products every month, both in our TMC lab and as part of conference room presentations. Some products end up in our news section and some earmark themselves for future product reviews. As each issue of CTI focuses on different products and different technologies, I will, in this Outlook present to you some of the essential technologies that we feel are a must-have for every corporation regardless of size. These product categories are sometimes lost among the more mainstream categories that get the majority of the press in our pages.

UNIFIED MESSAGING
As you probably know, unified messaging — the integration of your email, fax, and voice mail in a single inbox — is one of the killer applications in the CTI market. We often discuss the benefits of this technology, and if you still haven’t taken a closer look, you are really missing one of the largest productivity boosters ever. I regularly save 50 voice messages at once, and of course, I need to hear messages 38, 46, and 50. Using the telephone interface, I have been forced to become a master at pressing the message forward button on the telephone keyboard with the speed and dexterity of the most experienced Nintendo player. Yet, with all this experience, I can still spend from 5 to 10 minutes trying to find the right message. In the case of accidentally erasing the most important message in my voice mailbox, there ensues a mad scramble to undelete it before it ends up in an electronic blender.

Of course, even the simplest voice mail interface is a blessing compared to the fax interface in most corporations. Do you have multiple fax machines? Do your faxes ever sit in an inbox wasteland? Have you ever missed deadlines because an important fax sat by the fax machine for an extended period of time? These problems are common and can easily be avoided through unified messaging. Some of the key vendors to look at are Active Voice, Algo Communications, Applied Voice, CallWare Technologies, CTL, DEC, Esna Tech, Interactive Intelligence, Lucent, Nortel, Telekol, The Automatic Answer, and Telephone Response Technologies (TRT).

FAX SERVERS
While unified messaging products are great, it may not be critical for your company to implement them for one reason or another. In this case, I would expect you to evaluate unified messaging for the future and make sure that you purchase a fax server in addition to the e-mail and voice mail systems you currently have. If don’t yet have e-mail or voice mail in your business, please put down this issue of CTI — right now — and start evaluating unified messaging products for immediate purchase. Don’t even consider separate systems, as you will have to replace these products soon. Companies to look at are CommercePath (formerly AIFP), Alcom, Expert Systems, Interstar Technologies, Radlinx, Omtool, RightFax (now a subsidiary of Applied Voice Technology, Inc.), Computer Associates, Copia International, Telegra, and Advanced Image Communications.

INTERNET FAX PRODUCTS AND SERVICE
If you are looking at a fax server solution for your company, keep the following points in mind:

• Make sure that the vendor you select has Internet fax capability built into their product; and if not,
• Make sure that they offer an alliance with another company that does provide this service.

Internet fax products can convert your fax to Internet Protocol (IP) packets, thus acting as an Internet fax gateway to send them to a second remote gateway that converts the packets back to the original fax. Brooktrout and Micom provide these types of products. Internet fax hardware and software convert your fax to IP packets either by scanning the original document or by using a printer driver on your PC and then send the IP packets over a network to a fax service provider. The service provider determines which fax server in its network is closest to the receiving machine, then transports the fax over the Internet/Intranet to that server, which, in turn, dials the destination fax machine, incurring only the local calling charges for that area. Typically, the fax service provider charges a flat perfax fee. FaxSav is one company that provides this type of service.

E-MAIL READERS
With each passing day, email becomes more important as a communications medium. There are two particular instances where this technology is important: In geographic areas that are prone to traffic, it makes incredible sense to listen to your e-mail messages spoken to you as you drive; and while traveling, it makes sense to be able to check your messages without the use of a laptop, since it may not always be possible to connect your laptop modem to a phone line. Many e-mail readers allow you to listen to just the subjects of each message with an approximate message reading time. If a message is appealing, you can opt to have it read to you at various speed levels. A recent demo from Lucent Technologies showed off the ability to read an email many times faster than normal. It took some time to adjust to listening at the increased speed, but it was possible to completely absorb the e-mail faster than usual.

If you take this a step further, a voice front end to your unified inbox would allow you to listen to your voice mail, the headers of your e-mail, and the sender of your fax messages (through caller ID and a database lookup). This technology empowers the user to listen to messages as they see fit. Did your best customer send you a fax? If so, you can forward the fax to the destination of your choice. Do you need to respond to an e-mail ASAP? Just press the respond key on the telephone and start talking. The sender of the message will receive a verbal reply in the form of an embedded WAV file.

VIDEO EMAIL
Is this another CTI killer application? I think so. Video conferencing is a great technology, but the bandwidth and equipment costs are still too high for it to be implemented on every desktop. Not so with video e-mail. First, record your message. You can then play it and edit it at your leisure. When you are satisfied, send it. Since it’s an e-mail message, you can take advantage of the powerful functions of the e-mail software you use, such as the ability to CC: other people, ask for a return receipt, embed other files with your video, and so on.

The rationale for this type of product purchase is simple. When working with other people, face-to-face contact is the most powerful and productive means of communication. Sure, a real time video conference might be better, but the next best thing is to use a video e-mail message complete with hand motions and examples of something you may want to show the receiving party. The latest laptops are now sporting portable video cameras that will enable anyone to record video e-mails — even when traveling. Still unconvinced? Visit our Web site at www.ctimag.com/videoemail for a downloadable video email that will help you understand the power of this new communications vehicle. You might also pay a visit to ChatVideo! Corporation on the Web.

SPEECH RECOGNITION
Recently, many products have come to light designed to allow developers to integrate speech recognition into their IVR and auto-attendant systems. As computing power has increased, it is only natural that this would be the evolution of DTMF digit recognition. If you are a developer, you will want to check out Lernout & Hauspie’s and Dragon Systems’ products. If you are a reseller or are in the market for an auto attendant, IVR, or voice mail system, please keep this in mind: Make sure that the vendor you choose supports or will soon upgrade to support the ability to allow your callers to dial by name and give them self service to information they need without following ridiculously long numeric menu trees. Check out Wildfire Communi-cations and Com2001 for examples of this technology.

CONCLUSION
You’ve made your personal resolutions. Now its time to make some for your business. It’s only a matter of time before every business (large or small) implements some or all of the above technologies. This is the year to make that small investment that will pay for itself quickly with vastly improved productivity, sales, and customer service. Beat your competition and treat any one who contacts you to some true customer service. Implement these productivity gems right away.

Attend the most valuable reseller conference session you will ever attend, FREE at CTI EXPO! Attend the session, “How to Become the Most Profitable CTI Reseller Ever” and get loads of valuable information from Ingram Micro, the world’s largest wholesale distributor of technology products and services. We are very proud to have Ingram Micro contributing their expertise to this event. Ingram Micro supplies over 36,000 products to more than 100,000 reseller customers in 120 countries. They were the first traditional computer distributors to get into the CTI business and have tremendous experience to share with resellers of all types. If you are an Interconnect, computer VAR, or even an experienced CTI reseller, you MUST attend this FREE session to learn how to become the most profitable reseller ever. The seminar will take place Wednesday, May 20, 1998 from 12:00 P.M. to 1:30 P.M. at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland. I’ll see you there. Please visit www.ctiexpo.com or call 203852-6800 x0 for more information on how to register for this event.

You may have noticed that Technology Marketing Corporation has a new logo, which appears on the cover and spine of this issue. This logo will appear on many of the products we produce. Our first publication in the call center and telecommunications field was Telemarketing and Call Center Solutions magazine, which made its debut back in 1982. CTI magazine — 18 months old — has come a long way in a very short amount of time. From cover to cover, from the graphics to the in-depth editorial quality, we strive to be a first read and a must read every month.

Internet Telephony
The subject of Internet telephony has been popping up more and more in the pages of CTI lately. The virtual explosion of products and services in this new market space has made it impossible to cover all the incredible opportunities available to resellers, developers, MIS, networking/ telecom/datacom departments, Telco/LEC/Wireless/PCS/ ISP/Cable Companies in CTI magazine alone. For this reason, we have decided to launch INTERNET TELEPHONY™ magazine. Some of the key products and categories covered by this magazine will be:

• Data Networking
• Voice/Video/Fax over Corporate Data Networks
• Multicasting
• Client Software
• Gateways
• VAR/Developer/Reseller Products and Opportunities
• Telecommuting
• Conferencing
• Web Call Back/ Call Through
• Wireless
• Network PBX
• Push Technology
• Collaborative Computing
• Security
• Virtual second line.

Subscribe today for FREE and encourage everyone else in your company to do the same at www.itmag.com

TMC LABS
There has been an absolutely overwhelming demand from our readers to expand our objective, indepth testing to our other publications. We are flattered by the attention, and have responded by renaming CTI Labs to TMC Labs, as it now becomes the central testing resource that ties all three of our publications together. You can now expect the same quality of reviews that you have come to depend on in CTI to appear in Internet Telephony and Telemarketing and Call Center Solutions as well.

www.ctimag.com
In case you haven’t looked lately, our Web site www.ctimag.com offers complete, fully searchable issues of CTI magazine going back to October of 1997. Feel free to browse our site and search for the latest news, research a reviewed product, or peruse some articles. While you are there, make sure to sign up for our free new CTI newsletter. Our newsletter will provide the same topical coverage as our magazine, but will be available in a more timely manner.

Where there’s a phone, there’s a way. That’s what Ron Carper, president of Carper’s Internet Services, believed when he created the “Daily Special” Web site — a comprehensive guide to restaurant menus and specials that can change as frequently as twice daily ( www.dailyspecial.com ).

Computer usage in restaurants is extremely low, but the telephone is ubiquitous. Carper turned to Artisoft’s Visual Voice ( www.artisoft.com ) for a user-friendly way to help restaurateurs populate his database. Via telephone, restaurant owners enter information into the Daily Special site, including daily lunch and dinner specials, beverage lists, changes in hours of business, and evening entertainment. Restaurant customers can either view posted information on the site, or can request faxes with menus, contact information, and even coupons.

Daily Special is still young, but Carper says Visual Voice is allowing him to grow the site quickly. He plans on implementing Visual Voice Recognition so restaurateurs can speak entries into the phone and avoid touch-tone entry entirely, and hopes to add support for other languages with Visual Voice’s international language support. Carper also plans on enabling restaurant reservations made over the Internet. Daily Special is just one example of how computertelephony integration can open communication channels for non-computer users.