Voice Mobility offers unified messaging via Google

A unified messaging application from a Canadian vendor should be of use to small businesses using Google Apps, according to one industry analyst.

Vancouver-based Voice Mobility Inc. says its UCN Vmerge service now lets users access Google Apps software, including Gmail and the online scheduling and office productivity applications made by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc.

Using their Gmail accounts, UCN Vmerge customers can access voicemail, e-mail and fax communications from one inbox. Users can access the service from Windows Mobile devices, including hardware running Java 2 Mobile Edition, Pocket PC and smart phones, said Mehdi Nezarati, a project manager with Voice Mobility.

He said the back end requires either Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server, and for small businesses with 100 or fewer users account, a Pentium 4 processor should support the service.

“You don’t need a very heavy server,” he said. “A Pentium 4 will suffice to manage all your unified communication needs perfectly.”

Nezarati added voicemails appear in users’ Gmail accounts as .wav files. Users can also send faxes from Gmail, manage live calls from their desktop PCs, synchronize call logs and use their computers to click to dial internal and international numbers. One advantage of a service like this is small companies do not need to purchase a Microsoft product like Exchange Server or Office Communications Server, said Jayanth Angle, research analyst with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group.

“The model that this solution uses, leveraging Google’s applications, definitely is a much more practical approach for enabling unified communications capabilities in (the small business) market,” he said.

But he added there are some disadvantages to relying on a Web-based mail system like Gmail for corporate communications.

“If you lose connectivity, do your users lose access to any type of productivity applications that you require? That would be word processors, spreadsheet, et cetera.”

Google Apps Premier Edition, which costs US$50 per seat, includes a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee, whereby Google lets users get the service free of charge for a fixed period of time if the Google’s servers fail. But it does not cover failures of customer equipment or other infrastructure beyond Google’s control.

“The concerns would definitely be around the reliability of service,” Angl said, but added it will appeal to businesses are either have Google Apps or are thinking of rolling it out.