A hosted service is unlikely to fill the bill for large enterprises with investments in PBX, e-mail and directory services. For them, a managed service is the way to go, if at all.
Open Minded
The hallmark of the new generation of UM products is open standards and integration. That is, they integrate with your network infrastructure and leverage enterprise resources such as your directory and message store. To get the full benefits of UM in a managed outsourcing arrangement, carriers must integrate with critical enterprise resources and secure data to make them available to employees and customers through telephone interfaces and speech-enabled applications. How carriers handle security and data integrity will be a paramount concern.
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Glossary
VPIM: Voice Profile for Internet Mail facilitates server-to-server message exchange using existing Internet mail specifications. It encloses voice and fax messages in MIME message parts and transports them between servers using SMTP over TCP/IP. In short, it defines an Internet standard to exchange voice and fax messages between mail servers. VPIM does not dictate how servers present messages in client applications, but it does define how multipart messages are formatted and used within a set of Internet conventions and rules. It was first developed in 1995 by the Electronic Messaging Association and is now on the Internet standards track at VPIM version 2.
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And of course, the devil is in the details.
Implementing UM is easy compared with provisioning the services and applying rate information for billing purposes. For example, most carriers provision services from a subscriber account identification number tied to the principle device used to receive service: the telephone. Telephone numbers are assigned to a location or switch. Billing information is generated from usage based on service levels and other factors, such as time of day and destination. Today, an account ID may have more than one device that accesses services, for example a landline as well as a wireless telephone, pager and PDA. With UM, each of these devices may have separate rate information, and costs may be reflected in air time for wireless access or packets/bytes for voice messaging. In addition, usage and billing information may come from a variety of systems and formats. This information needs to be collected and presented to customers in standardized form. Moreover, customers need to fully understand this information and the technology to determine if their ROI is measuring up.
Any new enterprise technology requires some user training and education. Carriers need to make their services "simple and smart" for end users. In many organizations, for example, only a handful of employees ever make it beyond the basics of checking their voicemail. To get the full benefit of UM, enterprise customers will need training as well as easy-to-use telephone and computer interfaces to configure advanced messaging functions and follow-me features. Otherwise, you may be adding an unnecessary layer of complication to an indispensable enterprise resource.
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