A University of Miami instructor hurriedly checks his voice mail using a laptop to access his e-mail Inbox hosted on the school's Web site.
Miles away, the "message waiting" light on his desktop phone is instantly extinguished - a sure sign that the school's traditional and IP-enabled private branch exchange systems have responded to its new unified messaging (UM) application.
UM systems offer enterprise users a common interface for e-mail, voice mail and faxes. The technology works by snapping up voice messages, often stored as WAV files, converting these audio chunks to text, and depositing them in a user's e-mail Inbox.
Usually, the applications also wrap in text-to-speech technology to dump written e-mails into voice mail systems.
On the scene for almost a decade, UM has been saddled with slow adoption rates.
Finally, the technology is seeing an uptake among large organizations.
A SIP in time
One key reason for this is an evolving text-based standard: Session Initiation Protocol or SIP.
SIP lets traditional or mobile phones work together more readily with applications such as e-mail and instant messaging.
"SIP really saves the day, because it lets you introduce [unified messaging] products that work not only in the VoIP world, but solve legacy issues as well," says Stewart Seruya, the University of Miami's chief security and network officer.
As is the case with most organizations eyeing UM, interoperability was especially important to the university's technology decision-makers. Seruya and his staff wanted to extend access to unified Inboxes but were under orders not to rip out major existing systems, such as a huge installed base of Cisco switches. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/index.html
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