Online Unified Messaging: Fast, Cheap, On The Way - Industry Trend or Event

Computer Technology Review, Sept, 1999 by Joshua Piven

Several recent technology and product announcements got me thinking about that Holy Grail of modern communication: unified messaging. In the same week in late July, Microsoft Corp. and a dot-com startup called Office-Domain (founded by former Compaq execs) introduced two new online messaging solutions. MSN Messenger, Redmond's entry into the chat market, will allow MSN users to chat with users of rival AOL's ICQ and "buddy list" software. Office-Domain has just rolled out MessageASAP, a free, Web-based messaging service that offers browser-based access to email, voicemail, and faxes, all without the need to change mail accounts and phone numbers. A pager notification service is also available.

While the list of services and industries that the Web has "revolutionized" is seemingly endless, true unified messaging has remained just around the corner. The reasons for the lag, I suspect, are less technical than perceptual: email, voicemail and fax are so ingrained as separate applications that users don't stop to consider the benefits of integrating them--among them efficiency, almost incalculable cost savings, and universal connectivity.

But the move to Web-based unified messaging is coming. Consider: Where once users needed to pay to get their faxes over the Internet, they can now do so for free (efax.com). Where once white-boarding and conferencing required expensive proprietary software, online communities (When.com, Sixdegrees.com, Yahoo! Calendar, and scores of others) have made these once-difficult tasks effortless-and international.

As the circuit-switched POTS network moves to IP, we will see an explosion of Web-based messaging solutions that will offer functionality that today's sites are only just discovering. Voice messages routed to your personal Web page and streamed to you (or your cellphone) on demand. Faxes and emails stored on your site along with voice addendums attached. And, inevitably, video messages and Webcasts that can be stored in your online office and accessed at will.

Some of these messaging technologies are available today, of course, in rather rudimentary form. But the real promise of the Web is its ability to integrate--or, if you prefer, unify--the components into one location, accessible for free from any computer anywhere in the world.

That we are moving in this direction isn't really matter of debate; we are already halfway there. What's gotten me thinking is the question of who will ultimately own and run these sites. No doubt there will "messaging portals" similar to the info-portals that exist today, and, indeed, many of today's major portal players are jockeying for position in this emerging market.

But, more and more it seems, the telcos that control the copper and fibre will be gunning to provide these Web-based services. After all, if Bell Atlantic can already give me phone service, store my email and voicemail for me, and sell me an Ethernet card and DSL service, how much of a stretch is it to add that, faxing, and videoconferencing? Not much. My gut feeling is that the telcos and cablecos will begin offering these services very soon, either through buyouts of existing dot-coms and assimilation of their technology or through partnerships.

The web is in no position to eliminate the telephone and fax machine anytime soon. But that's not really the point. The Web will change, in ways we can't yet imagine, how the packets of data that flow through these devices are used. All that remains to be seen is how much Internet time it will take.