Until now it has been, fueled by the hype of unified messaging vendors and the media. One is that vendors tend to have e-mail or voice expertise, but not both, so strategic relationships among vendors are necessary. Because they lack the necessary sales and support channels, mail vendors that acquire voice technology and try to produce a system won't stand a chance. Voice vendors can better integrate e-mail and use their sales and support infrastructures to promote the technology. Getting a company to replace its telephone system is a major challenge.
Unified messaging is new and exciting because it has promised to be a messaging cure-all.
That kind of hype killed artificial intelligence when the technology couldn't deliver, and it would be a shame to see that happen here. Without the right early focus from the right type of vendors, unified messaging will languish as another promising technology that never happened. Feedback Tell us your thoughts on this article or the issues raised in it. When you click Submit, you'll be taken back to this article. The opposing view By Vinnie Deschamps, general manager of unified messaging at Lucent.