May 1999

What Is An "In-Skin" Voice Mail System?

BY DR. MEHMET E. BINAL

In the early eighties it was difficult to convince company executives to invest in a voice mail system. Salespeople could give endless examples of the benefits of such systems, to no avail. Now, at the end of the millenium, and less than twenty years after the availability of the first decent and affordable voice mail/automated attendant systems, callers are confronted with these systems everywhere. Some of us love to hate them; others cannot do without them. Whatever your feelings may be, these systems are here to stay. In fact, companies do not buy PBX/KTS systems if the vendors do not have a voice mail/automated attendant offering, even if the end user doesn't need it right away.

Thanks to improvements in the PC and DSP technologies, these systems are within the budget of almost any size organization. Most of the leading voice mail vendors supply packages consisting of a low-end PC, a voice processing board, and their application. One of the most troublesome issues confronting the distributors of these packages is the difficulty in integrating the voice mail system to the endless variety of PBX or KTS systems. The newer PBX/KTS systems sometimes do not even have analog interfaces. To connect a voice mail system, one has to buy special analog interface cards from the PBX/KTS vendor, which may cost a considerable amount of money. On top of that, by adding these cards into the system their capacity is reduced. Although there are SMDI offerings and digital set emulation boards available, these increase the overall cost of the voice mail system considerably.

PBX/KTS companies have not been able to market their own voice mail solutions at a reasonable cost until only a few years ago. In the past, these companies either resold a voice mail vendor's generic solution or designed their own external boxes using similar technologies. These solutions consisted of an external PC, a voice board from one of the voice board vendors, and a software license from one of the voice mail software vendors. There were a few problems with this approach.

The first problem was the diffuculty of maintaining a consistent supply of standard PCs due to the fast pace of change in PC technology. This created a major problem for the PBX/KTS vendors who traditionally design around hardware that is expected to be stable for at least five years. Almost every six months they were confronted with a new PC proposition, causing major setup and integration problems.

The second problem with this solution was that it was extremely difficult for the PBX/KTS companies to be competitive against the independent voice mail software vendors. If the PBX/KTS companies could solve this problem somehow, they would be the perfect vendor to distribute such a product, since end users often consider it to be an extention of a properly functioning PBX/KTS.

A SOLUTION
Recently, PBX/KTS companies adopted a different approach. By teaming up with voice board and voice mail application vendors, they designed a completely integrated, add-on PBX/KTS card that could be distributed as an option to end users.

These integrated/embedded platforms are called "in-skin" voice mail solutions. By bringing the integrated PC/DSP/application into the PBX/KTS systems, a very cost effective solution is achieved. The advantages of this solution are as follows:

1. Low cost due to the removal of power supplies, analog front end electronics, and integration of PC with DSP technologies on a single board.
2. Better integration due to the usage of internal proprietary protocols for call setup as well as user interface functions.
3. Ease of installation and maintenance due to the tight integration of the system at the hardware level. No tweaking is necessary, as all the call control signals are digital.
4. Fast response due to use of digital proprietary signaling through the backplane of the PBX/KTS.
5. No loss of capacity due to use of digital internal backplane connectivity for the voice channels.
6. Stability and longevity of the electronics due to use of embedded PC technology as opposed to off-the-shelf PC technology.

This solution provides an extremely powerful proposition to the market for a completely integrated, low-cost platform. By integrating tightly with the PBX/KTS functionality, these platforms become much more reliable than their PC counterparts due to their embedded nature.

Another important feature of these platforms is the openness of the hardware. As these platforms are essentially the same as the PC, any PC-based application can be ported with ease, providing rich CTI functionality to users. However, for this to become a reality, the PBX/KTS vendors have to open their platforms to CTI software developers by issuing an open API specification. It is not clear whether the vendors are willing to do this at this time.

MARKETING IMPACT
I have been watching the marketing statistics of these products, as I am involved with the development of such systems. It is very interesting to note that the percentage of the PBX/KTS systems shipped with pre-installed voice mail systems has been increasing. This increase brings more revenues and higher profit margins to the PBX vendors. On top of that, the vendors who successfully supply fully integrated in-skin systems sell more PBX/KTS systems regardless of whether they are supplied with voice mail systems or not. When buying, end users consider future upgrades, one of which is automated attendant/voice mail capability.

The reason for this trend is the cost effectiveness and functional integrity of these systems. Since I am familiar with some of these systems, I happen to know that providing such sophisticated features by using external PC-based voice mail systems is very difficult if not impossible at these price levels.

In-skin systems allow users to retain the familiar telephones at their desks while gaining the benefits of a completely integrated messaging systems with easy-to-use interfaces. Additionally, certain telephones - especially those with LCD panel displays - can effectively aid in the use of such voice mail systems.

One of the most important features of these integrated systems is their ability to be managed by the main processor of the PBX. Because these systems are plugged in to the PBX backplane, they are treated as a peripheral card. If the PC-based system fails during operation, then the main processor of the PBX notices such a failure due to the break in the signal and can recover the system by completely resetting it. This provision is helpful in recovering from software-based problems. While external systems require operator interference, in-skin systems are managed automatically by the PBX's main processor, giving end users a higher level of confidence and making in-skin systems more attractive for purchase.

Obviously, based on the increase in the number of units shipped, the in-skin systems have had a major impact on the voice mail market.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
It is inevitable that the PBX/KTS vendors will enhance these platforms with newer PC technologies and add more features. It is also plausible that network connectivity could be added using either an Ethernet or ATM connection, making the PBX itself a PC-based PBX platform.

There is no doubt that visionary PBX vendors will push the boundaries of this in-skin technology and make the PBX an integral part of the Internet. It is ironic that rather than putting the PBX into a PC, PBX companies may well be on their way to integrating the PC in to their PBXs. This will definitely give a higher level of confidence to the users of the telephone systems who have enjoyed the ubiquity and reliability of their PBX-centric communication systems for as long as they can remember.

The inevitable merging of telecommunication and computer technologies is happening. However, it is very difficult to claim that the PBX/KTS is dead. Obviously, there are some visionary vendors who are bringing these technologies into the realm of voice/data convergence to improve office communications.

Dr. Mehmet E. Binal is president of BICOM Inc. BICOM, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of DSP-based voice/fax processing platforms and is recognized for developing high quality solutions with superior price performance. For more information, please visit their Web site at www.bicom-inc.com.