Exchange Unified Messaging Integrates Communications
Exchange Unified Messaging
Every morning from New York to London to Tokyo, people walk into their office buildings, grab a cup of tea or coffee, and head to their office. They then log into their e-mail to check their mail messages. Afterwards they pick up their phones and call into their voicemail. Finally they might run down the hall to the fax machine to check for faxes. They repeat these steps over and over throughout their day, even transcribing a voicemail into e-mail or reading a fax into a colleague's voicemail.
It's been this way for decades—three different systems to manage three different types of communications, and three different sets of tools to access them. Microsoft Outlook is for e-mail, phones are for voicemail, fax machines are for faxes. But why does it have to be this way? The environment in which we work is not what it was five or ten years ago, so why should the way we deal with messaging and collaboration be the same? Why can't we get both our voicemail and faxes in our inbox? We can use a phone to access voicemail, but why can't we call in and get our e-mail messages? Why are communications separate rather than integrated?
Integrating Communications
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 aims to break down the traditional walls between disjointed messaging systems. Exchange Unified Messaging offers a revolutionary advance in the way we communicate and collaborate. Communications become truly integrated.
While traditional communications systems delivered messages into several different types of stores—voicemail systems, e-mail servers, and stand-alone fax machines—with Exchange Unified Messaging all types of messages are stored in one system. Voicemail messages, for example, are delivered directly into your inbox. You see them right beside your e-mail when you open up Outlook, offering powerful new ways to collaborate more effectively. For example, you can forward a voicemail or fax. You can even take notes in your voicemail message or search for old voicemail messages. No more notes stuck to your monitor!
Exchange Unified Messaging benefits not only you but also your information technology (IT) department. Today IT professionals have to maintain separate systems for each type of messaging. They have to be trained on different systems, monitor and troubleshoot in multiple places, set up accounts for each new employee in multiple directory infrastructures, and manage the security and maintenance of all of these essential systems. With Exchange Unified Messaging, these disparate systems can be consolidated, and in doing so, the IT department can look forward to fewer administrative headaches and a lower total cost of ownership. Exchange Unified Messaging not only simplifies and streamlines your life, but it also greatly reduces the cost and complexity of managing the messaging environment.
Messages on Your Terms
Over the years new releases of Exchange Server have introduced innovative ways to access e-mail messages. Some people prefer to use a rich desktop client such as Microsoft Outlook. Some people want to get their messages in a Web browser from a machine that does not have Outlook installed, such as an Internet kiosk. For them there's Outlook Web Access (OWA). As mobile phones continue to proliferate and people find themselves increasingly on the go, they need e-mail delivered to their phones. That's why in Exchange Server 2003 we introduced Exchange ActiveSync, which pushes e-mail messages directly to your mobile device.
With voicemail and fax messages part of the Exchange inbox, any of these methods can be used to access any type of message. Voicemail and fax messages can be played in Outlook or OWA. They can even be pushed out to a mobile device, and listened to or viewed there. Divorced from their traditional systems, even middle-aged communications like fax and voicemail can offer all the conveniences that were once only available to e-mail.
You get access to the communications you want where and when you want them!
Outlook Voice Access: Anywhere Access with a Phone
To these many great access methods, Exchange Unified Messaging adds another: Outlook Voice Access (OVA). Whereas before when you called into a voicemail system, all you got was your voicemail, with OVA you get full access to all your communications. You can still access your voicemail, but now you can access your e-mail messages and calendar as well.
In addition to simply giving you access, OVA allows you to collaborate and take action from your phone. Let's suppose you're stuck in traffic on your way to a meeting. You call into OVA and check your calendar. You can even send out notifications to all attendees that you will be late to your next meeting and make an estimate of how late you might be. If things get really bad, you can cancel the meeting entirely or even clear your calendar for the whole day. As you wait for the traffic to clear, you can have your e-mail messages read to you, deleting or replying to each message as appropriate.
Exchange Unified Messaging is based on many significant technological advances. However, at the end of the day it's the simplicity, flexibility, and convenience it offers that makes it so beautiful. You, not your messages, get to choose the ways you access your messages.