Unified messaging isn’t just for the desktop anymore. It can go anywhere the user
might care to go, even if the user were unable or unwilling to take advantage of a laptop.
All the user would need is a telephone — thanks to PhoneRider/CyberDesk, a
hardware/software package from MediaPhonics.
The PhoneRider is, essentially, a voice/fax/data modem. It uses full duplex, 16-bit,
8-KHz, digital audio for all telephone signals. It offers Sound Blaster compatibility and
echo cancellation. It is driven by a DSP-enabled, TAPI-compliant telephony processor that
doubles as a digital answering machine.
The CyberDesk software incorporates text-to-speech and unified messaging functionality.
Together with PhoneRider, CyberDesk constitutes a personal communications manager
dedicated to business mobile users. Main features include one inbox for e-mail, voice mail
and faxes; message notification; one-number follow-me; call back/call bridge; and remote
setup. As a complete product, PhoneRider CyberDesk is targeted at VARs and interconnects
interested in a readily available hardware/software solution.
INSTALLATION
Installation requires a Pentium-class Windows 95 PC, 16 MB of RAM, 10 MB of hard disk
space, speakers and a headset, microphone or telephone, a CD-ROM drive (or access to one
over a network), two DMA channels, and three free IRQ ports.
Be sure to disable your computer’s current sound card, and install the PhoneRider
board in a 16-bit ISA slot. After booting your PC, plug-and-play will recognize
PhoneRider’s accelerator and modem ports, followed by its audio, MPU-401, and
joystick functions. (The MPU-401 compatibility and joystick are optional.)
Your PC will ask for the several files from the Windows 95 CD-ROM, so have it nearby
before beginning the installation. When plug-and-play is finished, attach the telephone
line, telephone, speakers, line out, microphone, and line in jacks. Then, reboot.
Your computer will start the PhoneRider installation wizard. One of its first steps is
choosing PBX options. You can choose "none" here if you’re not using a PBX,
or you may choose "new" to enter custom settings. We used a simple analog
telephone for our tests; real-life installations probably require your PBX’s
documentation to configure telephony commands.
PhoneRider runs a self-test of the computer’s audio functions. If all goes well,
choose finish, insert the CyberDesk CD-ROM, and reboot again.
Your PC should automatically run the setup program, but ours didn’t. Instead, we
ran the setup.exe file directly. Choose either the typical (software and user’s
guide), minimal (software only), or custom options, bringing you to another setup wizard.
You’ll need to install or check the PC’s current dialing properties.
CyberDesk asks you to choose which of its five features you want to install; click on any
option to exempt it from installation. The software also guides you through several
screens to configure user messages, etc., many of which appear redundant, but which
actually have slight differences. Finally, you’re finished. We suggest rebooting one
last time before opening the software.
DOCUMENTATION
The online help file is merely adequate. Fortunately, the documentation available on the
MediaPhonics Web site is much more extensive. Also, the printed manual is excellent.
The printed manual includes sections for installing the PhoneRider board, installing
the CyberDesk software, and using the software. Each section has its own index and
appendices; each is well organized; and each is well illustrated with screen shots.
We were favorably impressed by the user’s manual. It was well written, explaining
everything a user would need to know, but without dwarfing the Encyclopedia Britannica.
FEATURES AND OPERATIONAL TESTING
The product’s core capabilities include unified messaging, remote access, and speech
recognition/text-to-speech. In use, the product demonstrates the interplay of all these
core capabilities. For example, it will read inbound e-mail and faxes to the user, and it
will save voice mail messages as .WAV files. (CyberDesk includes a built-in .WAV
player/recorder.) Outbound replies and customizable user prompts are also .WAV files.
Also, users can enable or disable most options from any remote telephone.
One-Number Follow-Me
With this feature, you can enact your own rules for forwarding calls. Specifically, calls
to your main number may be redirected to a remote number. Also, while the transfer is
being accomplished, the .WAV player can run a file, which may be a message in your own
voice.
If you don’t want to record a message, you can enter text instead, and have
CyberDesk read it to the caller. (The software gives you this option for any kind of
message.) Make sure you play back the message before accepting it, because you may need to
experiment with phonetic spellings to obtain the best reading from the software. Take, as
an example, the word "CyberDesk." If you use the ordinary spelling, the software
will pronounce something like "sih-berd-isk." The player garbled most surnames
we tested.
There are two other interesting follow-me options. First, there is the controlled
transfer option, which, if enabled, will transfer the call to CyberDesk’s own
answering machine if you don’t answer the remote telephone, or it will tell the
caller that you’re unavailable if the answering machine option is disabled. If you
don’t answer the remote telephone, and controlled transfer is disabled, the call is
under the remote telephone system’s control.
The second option is caller identification. When this option is enabled, CyberDesk will
ask the caller who they are before it transfers to the remote number, and it will play
that name to you before the caller can hear your voice.
Unified Messaging
CyberDesk collects all of your e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages, whether they
originate from your Exchange server or your PBX, and reads them to you. Sounds good? Well,
yes and no. That is, you’re liable to hear both the essential and the irrelevant.
CyberDesk reads the entire message — every header, every word, every mailer daemon.
This can become vexing, especially when you receive a reply message or a message
that’s been forwarded, because these often include quoted and redundant material, and
CyberDesk reads all of this, too, before it finally gets to the original message.
If you’re on the road or at some other remote site and have a fax machine nearby,
we suggest that you choose to route e-mail to that fax machine instead (what the marketing
people call "remote forwarding"). That way, you can scan past what you’d
rather not read.
You may, however, decide to take advantage of the reader for quick e-mail messages.
You’ll rest your eyes and avoid wasting paper. To reply, you speak, creating a .WAV
file via the recorder, which CyberDesk directs to the sender.
Any Windows PC, or even a Macintosh, can read .WAV files. (However, you can never be
sure that the sender has a multimedia-equipped PC.) For voice mail messages, the user can
reply using the message’s caller ID information. (However, you never can be sure that
the message came from the sender’s standard location.) You can also mark messages as
unread or choose to leave them on the server.
Message Notification
Any time a predefined number of messages accumulates in your inbox, CyberDesk will alert
you at your remote number, and then read your messages or fax them to you, at your
request. Used in this way, CyberDesk becomes a sort of automated receptionist who sends
you your messages while you’re away from the office, or even in a different part of
the office.
Call Back
With this money-saving feature, users can access CyberDesk from a hotel telephone, or via
a calling card, while avoiding the extra expense typical of these means of access. The
call back feature lets you enter the number you’re at, hang up, and have CyberDesk
call that number. You may still pay long-distance rates, but your corporate rates are
always cheaper than calling cards or hotel surcharges. In future versions, MediaPhonics
may include IP callback, making the return call totally free by sending it over the
Internet instead of the public telephone network.
Interface
Four buttons beneath the message display change dynamically depending on the feature
you’re currently using, so your desktop isn’t cluttered with dozens of buttons
when all you really need at any time are three or four. One button even blinks (in green)
when a message arrives, in concert with audio alerts, which may include user-defined .WAV
files associated with events such as telephone rings.
Other Features
Other features include a monitor button, which lets you listen to incoming voice mail
messages, and a quiet button, which temporarily disables the notification option (and
changes your telephone ring to a simple beep).
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We’d like the product to include a basic e-mail client, which would let a user send a
conventional text reply or highlight text and have CyberDesk "read" only a
portion of a message. Sometimes, it seemed the time CyberDesk could have saved us was lost
because we were obliged to listen to irrelevant parts of e-mail and fax messages.
And, we’re sorry, but MediaPhonics simply has to be more discrete when it records
the default .WAV messages, which users might play for various answering machine and caller
hold options. These messages shamelessly announce that CyberDesk is handling the call.
Other room for improvement items include the remote access functionality, or, more
accurately, the remote configuration functionality. (At present, only a selection of
features can be adjusted remotely. In the future, we’d like to see more complete
remote integration.) Also, we think some of the software configuration screens are
redundant and require too many reboots. (However, this more of a Windows problem than a
CyberDesk problem.) And, finally, CyberDesk could stand to improve its online help. (Quite
simply, it is not up to scratch, and it is often useless in solving problems.)
CONCLUSION
We have to say we’re impressed by MediaPhonics’ PhoneRider/CyberDesk. On the
developmental end, it represents a steady progression of functionality. The company
started out with chipsets, ISA cards, and turnkey manufacturing kits. However, finding
that no applications existed (or were forthcoming) that could take advantage of its
platform, MediaPhonics went ahead and created its own complete hardware/software solution.
More important than the product’s history, however, is what it can do for users.
It can give them remotely accessible unified messaging functionality — at a very
reasonable price.
Unified messaging should available to all business users, but most packages that are
worth buying cost several thousand dollars and sell only as enterprise solutions. But for
$299.00, CyberDesk is a great deal. It would be even better if MediaPhonics were to IP- or
Web-enable it in upcoming versions. Nonetheless, CyberDesk is a fine product, combining
power and parsimony in one package. |
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