April 1998

BY DARREN L. RUSH

As with other evolving marketplaces, the market for communication services for business continues to segment into more specialized areas. Both service providers and IT departments now maintain an array of computing devices from mainframes, to servers, to PCs, to lightweight clients such as telephones or pagers. As far as applications are concerned, very few scale across all devices and deliver any level of utility to the people who use them — except perhaps, unified messaging. Messaging is the backbone of business communications, and the medium of choice these days is the Internet. This article makes some basic assumptions regarding the state of today’s business and technology environment:

• Unified messaging will supplant single media messaging systems such as email and voice mail because of the flexibility and control it gives users, the simplified management it gives administrators, and the long term cost of ownership it offers to the operator and end user.
• Voice and data systems will converge, and the data layer will be the foundation. Voice will be compressed and carried on the data layer, not the opposite.
• The Internet, IP, and voice over IP (VoIP) will be a sufficient framework for deployment of the next generation of applications.

For the IT manager or business development manager evaluating new technologies which will give their business a competitive edge and make their workforce or customer base more effective, these can be tricky times. The short-lived media frenzy surrounding technologies we already have (but might not know it) only confuses the issue. For example, we are taunted by the allure of the thin client — one that requires no manual upgrades since applications are provided over the network — and is so simple that everyone can use it. In a systems view of the world, thin clients aren’t a new invention. The telephone is about the thinnest client I can think of, and they have been ubiquitous for quite a while now.

SMART. THIN. DISTRIBUTED.
What is more interesting here is that the computing power of the system is becoming distributed over the data network. With the Internet, we are now able to put smarter thin clients on the network.

Network Computers
At the high-end of the thin client realm is the network computer, or NC. The NC concept is simple enough — little-to-no storage on a local machine that appears just like a PC but relies on the network for applications. NCs are slowly coming to the marketplace, but as NCs and the Java technology they are based on mature, they will become a very real part of the equation for computing and communications networks.

Consumer Electronics
At the lower end of the thin-client realm are the consumer electronic smart devices. These are the cool, new devices that are popping up everyday. They are usually handheld, may provide mobility to the user, and integrate one or two hot technologies which makes the device a must have for early adopters and patrons of The Sharper Image stores. I believe the most recognizable device in this category is the PalmPilot from 3Com. The device was the hippest holiday present around this past year for the techie or business person who has been waiting to trash their Rolodex. This represents the first time that a device with a high ‘cool’ factor has penetrated the mainstream of lawyers, doctors, sales people, and executives, not just the technology elite.

The best feature of the PalmPilot is the ability to write directly on the device. There’s no overly complex user interface, no bulky or miniscule keyboard to fumble over, and a design that anyone can become comfortable with in a relatively short amount of time. The technology to accomplish this task has been around for a while. It was within the last year, however, that the combination of processing power, manufacturing cost, and form factor reached a point that made this device viable in the marketplace. Which brings us to the next point: Consumer electronics have reached an economic critical point where the combination of cost, sophistication, and power will allow the PalmPilot and similar devices to become mainstream.

The point of this discussion is that you will see many new devices which fit a similar model. The PalmPilot falls into a group of devices and technologies including WebTV, Nokia 9000, AutoPC, and WindowsCE which offer a unique combination of user interface, processing capability, and connectivity. Character recognition, speech recognition, and text to speech will be resident on these devices, and along with network connectivity, will make them complete communications and computing clients.

For the business user, these devices promise to make them more efficient, more mobile, and more organized. The remote sales force may be the first to adopt these technologies within larger organizations, although you probably already know an executive and assistant that have them, as well.

Some of the consumer electronics-based applications may become mainstream for all individuals as these devices and unified messaging meet. One good example of this is WebTV. Many people follow a similar pattern when they return home from work — they turn on the news and hit play on the answering machine. When unified messaging and WebTV are fully integrated, that same user will simply hit their home page — and retrieve the news and their messages (voice, fax, and email) through the same interface. It is important to note that unlike NC pundits, I am not advocating that thin clients will replace PCs entirely. They will replace some, however, and they will become a much more significant part of the communication and computing infrastructure in the near future.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE
Unified messaging, with its centralized access and client agnosticism, is an application that can deliver value to users who require these devices to get their job done. In fact, unified messaging provides the glue that will help managers integrate these devices to the critical business processes that make them more competitive. A few unified messaging vendors have already made strides to integrate their products with these devices.

Choosing which products and technology strategies to utilize is a question that will separate the winners from the losers through the next wave of technology advancement. In general, a few predictions can be made based on these trends:

Standards
Standards will continue to be a requirement and key part of the purchasing decision for implementers of unified messaging. With a proliferation of devices all connected to a unified messaging framework, the importance of standards cannot be overemphasized. It is only standards at every level including multimedia formats, client/server network protocols, and presentation standards that will allow ubiquitous messaging connectivity.

A Real Speech Interface
The full speech interface that has been fairly elusive in affordable unified messaging applications to date will be delivered with these thin client devices first. There are several reasons that this is the case. First, by distributing some of the processing for speech to the device, unified messaging applications with speech interfaces will scale much better. In addition, by transmitting only data between client and server, the bandwidth of the connection can be reserved for more important information such as news or voice. Almost all speech interfaces are server-based today. They rely on voice commands to be transmitted to a server, processed, and responses returned. This method also introduces noise that has kept good speech interfaces from proliferating in the cellular arena. Using a distributed speech interface model lessens all of these problems.

Internet-Based Unified Messaging
The Internet will be the medium that delivers the connectivity everyone wants. Regardless of how you think it will be delivered — over cable, telephone, or wireless infrastructures — the Internet will be there. With technologies like CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Service) and ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line), the amount of bandwidth and general data connectivity will allow the universal inbox to be accessible from the office, from the road, or from the hotel room with absolute ease. Proprietary networking protocols or standards will suffer from major problems as unified messaging systems grow to become remotely accessible or accessible from new devices. Among these problems will be provisioning security in the network for proprietary protocols, scalability of proprietary standards, and lack of compatibility with the broadest range of unified messaging smart devices.

NEXTGEN CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ADOPTERS
For those people planning, buying, or implementing unified messaging solutions, it is important to factor in the effect this next generation of consumer electronics will have on your customer base.

If you are a communications service provider (ISP, telco, or hybrid) who will offer unified messaging as part of your service offering, choosing an Internet-based unified messaging solution will give you the best migration path to client compatibility. By keeping an IP and standards based system in your environment, you guarantee that you will be able to target these new devices as they become more popular. Also, considering that Internet-based services are probably already in your offering, providing access to these devices may become a ‘freebie’ which allows you to package your services in some interesting new ways.

For IT managers implementing unified messaging within an organization, the decision isn’t as clear. Proprietary unified messaging systems may get you where you want to go, but consider a few key questions in your decision making: Will NCs be in your environment in the next 5 years? If so, will your messaging system migrate to the new platform? Will smart devices benefit a segment of your workforce? Will you be able to integrate your information services to them if they become standard issue for a particular department? If your answer is "yes" to any of these questions, you need to seriously investigate Internet-based unified messaging before making any purchasing decisions.

The combination of Internet-based unified messaging and smart devices offer a powerful case for improving business communications for many types of users, while bringing the advantages of thin client management to administrators.

Darren Rush, Telinet’s chief technical officer, has been involved in commercial software development for the past ten years. Mr. Rush was previously with Internet Security Systems, a leader in the security auditing software for computer networks. He pioneered the revolutionary MediaMail unified messaging software, and has developed new applications to enhance the functionality of leading edge computer telephony applications. Telinet is a leading developer of software for convergent communications. Their flagship product, MediaMail, is an Internet-based unified messaging system designed to offer value-added services by communications service providers connecting the Public Switched Telephone Networks to the Internet. For more information, contact the company at 7702391000 or visit their Web site at www.telinet.com.