UM Update – Evaluating UM Solutions
While unified messaging (UM) hasn’t been getting as much notice as its big cousin, unified communications (UC), it’s still an important market that warrants its fair share of attention. To that end, I recently updated a UM market study I wrote a year and a half ago.
There are many things companies should be looking at and thinking about when considering moving to unified messaging. Obviously the choice of vendor is key among these considerations. The new study, “Evaluating Unified Messaging Solutions 2008,” analyses the various vendor offerings, and presents vendor positioning based on two criteria – Completeness of Solution and Ability to Lead Market. It’s important to recognize that this positioning table focuses only on the vendors’ unified messaging capabilities, and not UC functionality.
“Ability to Lead Market” looks at the vendors’ worldwide market share, distribution strategy and channel partners, global presence, financial stability, flexibility in meeting customers’ needs, customer “mindshare,” and other factors that impact the ability to be a leading UM player this year and next. “Completeness of Solution” looks beyond the basic integration of voice mail, email, and fax, to include capabilities such as: find me/follow me, live reply, speech-enabled personal assistant, automated attendant, notification options, the ability to work with different groupware products, support for both IP and TDM environments, integration with multiple vendors’ switches, and other important capabilities.
The vendor that received the top ranking in terms of Ability to Lead Market was Avaya, followed by Cisco, Nortel, and Mitel. This ranking is based on these vendors’ market share and installed base (for example, many companies will be replacing old Avaya/Octel voice mail and UM systems will newer models), as well as their strong distribution and channel programs and partners. These vendors all leverage their IP PBX and switch shipments, as companies often make their UM purchase decision at the same time or shortly after they make their IP PBX purchase decision.
Looking at Completeness of Solution, the top ranking vendors are AVST and Esnatech, followed by Siemens, Interactive Intelligence, and Zeacom. AVST and Esnatech OEM their UM products (although AVST also sells its products through channel partners), and both are sold not as add-ons for their switches (especially since neither vendor manufactures or sells switches), but as independent UM products that can interoperate with virtually any switch. These independent vendors, including Active Voice, have always been at the forefront of offering full-featured products with more bells and whistles, as well as capabilities like TUI emulation, voice mail networking options, speech capabilities, etc., compared with vendors that sell UM as a switch enhancement, rather than on a standalone basis.
In addition to the positioning analysis, the market update also provides a Vendor Feature Matrix to enable enterprise customers to see what features/capabilities each of the 17 vendors analyzed provides. Some of the features/capabilities identified include find me/follow me, live reply, speech access to calendar information, Personal Assistant, and more. The matrix also shows which email systems the UM products integrate with, voice mail networking options (AMIS, VPIM, etc.), dual or single message store, etc.
For companies moving to unified messaging, the study also presents recommendations to help select a UM system and to make user adoption go more smoothly. It suggests starting with a small group of users, enabling UM capabilities only for those individuals and pockets of users that need the capabilities and functionality, and providing initial and continual user training on the various features and capabilities of your UM system. Lastly, the study presents key issues companies need to consider when implementing UM solutions, such as looking at your business needs and who are the users, aligning your UM system with other aspects of your organization, and the need for flexibility.
While new technologies such as instant messaging and social software or Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 are slowly changing the way in which many of us communicate, there is still a strong need for voice mail and unified messaging solutions, and companies moving to UM need to research, analyze, and evaluate the various options available to them.
For more information on the study, see http://tinyurl.com/3h9pey, or contact me at bpleasant@commfusion.com.