Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

Slide 1 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

Good afternoon or morning everyone, depending where you happen to be located here in the United States or wherever else. Welcome again to the webinar. Unified Messaging is really one of those technologies that started to become almost a catch phrase. Everyone's talking about it, everyone's looking towards it. Unified communications is another one of those (UC). Its kind of a big umbrella phrase its one of those phrases that's kind of out there and everyone talks about it but nailing down the definition for it and what's all encompassed in that can sometimes be a challenge. So we're going to take the unified messaging component of unified communications and see how that can fit in the overall plan and how the products from AVST can help you achieve your goals in developing your ongoing unified communications strategy.

Slide 2 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

So today, the things we'll take a look at. First, take a look at a snapshot of who AVST is. Kind of go over unified messaging. What is unified messaging? What does it mean? Some people say if you get five people in a room and ask them “what is unified messaging”, you'd get 7 or 8 answers. That can sometimes be true so we're going to kind of define a few terms and get a fixed idea of what unified messaging really is and what the different options are out there. Everyone talks about unified messaging but the method in which it's implemented is different and significantly different based on what products you're looking at. The impact to your organization for those different implementation options can sometimes be very significant. That's what we're going to look at is how to take the architecture of unified messaging, the options available with unified messaging, and what are the things that you really need to consider as your evaluating the pluses and minuses of all the different methods of providing unified messaging. Of course, at the end we'll open it up for questions and answers. Please feel free to submit your questions in the chat window of the sidebar of the counsel or hold your questions until the end. We'll open it up for everybody to ask any types of questions at the end.

Slide 3 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

So AVST, applied voice and speech technology. We have been around for a long time. We were actually one of the inventors of voicemail. Voicemail is one of those ubiquitous applications that's out there that we tend to think of has been around forever. But it really got its start in the late 70's and early 80's and AVST was one of the first companies to deliver a voice messaging application. We've been doing it for nearly 30 years now with really being the leaders in delivering advanced applications within this niche of the telecommunications, voice, and data industry. We are singularly focused on this technology and many of the aspects that surround this technology and the ways that this technology can really enhance your implementations to the unified communications strategy.

Slide 4 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

We have a broad range of customers; we'll 2ake a snap shot at some of those. One of the things we're very proud of, because of the focus that we have in this particular niche of the industry. If you talk to any of the independent consulting firms that surround the industry, voice and data industry (Gartner, Frost and Sullivan and those types of organizations), and ask them their ideas of the leaders and those companies providing this. Without exception, all of those independent consulting firms will identify AVST and CallXpress as really being one of the most complete solutions that are available in the marketplace today. That really has been validated without presence in the marketplace. Voice Reports did a survey last year, late last year that surveyed many major organizations and enterprises to find out what was the primary voicemail system that they had. We were proud to be, by a wide margin, the leader within that survey that they sampled.

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It's also been validated by the customers/ the company that we keep. You'll see on this list some pretty recognizable names in many different vertical markets. We have customers that have 20 or 30 employees all the way to those that have 10s of thousands of employees spread across many locations and even international sites. Regardless of the size of your organization and how you're situated physically, CallXpress can really meet your needs. The next thing about CallXpress is there are not multiple models of CallXpress there is one feature package. Whether you're a small 20 employee organization that needs a small four port system up to a huge organization with 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand or more users and need a huge system, the feature set that's available to you is identical across the board.

Slide 7 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

Looking around to where unified messaging is in the marketplace today, you can see that there is a significant penetration of unified messaging and implementations of it. We were actually the inventors of unified messaging back in the early 90's, 1993, having the first unified messaging product in the marketplace. So we've been talking about it for a long time. The real implementation though, the widespread implementation, has really begun in the last decade or so. Really in the past 7 or 8 years. But it really has blossomed significantly as infrastructures have become more mature and more ready to be able to handle it, the deployment of voice over IP strategies, really enhances the value proposition of deploying unified messaging and unified communications solutions in the enterprise and has made it a very viable option.

Slide 9 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

Let's start focusing now on the specific definition of what is unified messaging, what does it really mean? There's lots of marketing slides we can throw up but really, when you boil it right down, unified messaging, and it kind of can get buried in the whole unified communications discussion, portion of communications. What that really means is no matter where you are and what the device you have access to (whether it's a telephone, a PC computer, your mobile device, a smart phone, things like that, or an internet kiosk going through an airport… whatever the device is that you have access to) being able through (the main portal that your accessing your messages through) to get to whatever message type you have. Whether its voice, email, fax, attachments of emails, or any of those types of thing. Being able to access those from whatever is the most convenient and the most appropriate device that you have available to you and that's very significant. There's lots of different ways to access messages but not all devices and not all methods for accessing messages are appropriate at any particular given time. And having a platform that allows you the greatest freedom to access those messages using the devise that's the most appropriate is a very important consideration as you're evaluating the strategies and applications as you're looking at.

Slide 10 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

In the very basic form, here is a very basic snapshot of an outlook client in the same inbox as your standard email messages you have voice messages and fax messages appearing. Being able to manage those, have them easily identified as voice messages or fax messages so THAT at a glance you're able to see what the message is and make the decisions based on what type of message it is, who it's from, all of those types of parameters. Be able to triage all of your other message types in a way that you've been accustomed to doing with email messages for many of years. It's very easy to look down and say “I'm waiting for that message from Mark Smith”. Well, now very quickly not only you can not only see you have a email message but you also see you have a missed call from Mark Smith and are able to process those appropriately and very quickly and easily, to triage that type of information. That's the basic overview of what unified messaging is and kind of the broad fences that you can draw around the technology. When you pull back the curtain and take a look at how that is implemented within in your environment, there are very significant differences in the methods of providing unified messaging.

Slide 8 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

That's where we're going to take a look at next is the different methods or architectures for delivering unified messaging. There are pluses and minuses to each of these ways. We've been doing this for a long time, as I've said, nearly 17, 18 years now we've been delivering unified messaging solutions to the marketplace, and one thing we found out in all that time is there is no best way to do unified messaging that will apply to all organizations. The different architectures that are available (single message store, dual message store (things like that), we'll drill down into a little more details as to what these are and how they can impact your environment. There are significant differences here and what may be best for one organization might not be best for another. And even within a particular organization, what might be best or required for a particular set of users may be significantly different or appropriate than with a different set of users within the same organization. CallXpress is very unique in that each of these four methods of unified messaging; we are one of the only systems available in the marketplace today that simultaneously supports all four methods on a single CallXpress system assigned on a user by user basis. To change the user from one method to the other, from a CallXpress perspective, is as simple as a click of the mouse from within the administration client. It's very easy to do. There is the same unified messaging license encompassing all of these different methods. So in a user by user basis, you can choose which method of unified messaging is the best. Taking a look at these terms, these are terms that we kind of and many unified messaging manufactures very easily and just were very nick name oriented, I guess you could say, in that server based unified messaging, client based unified messaging. Well what does that really mean? And, what's the impact on your environment if you were to implement a server based or client based unified messaging solution. So let's take a step back and pull open the hood just a little bit and see how these aspects of unified messaging are implemented in your environment and what are the plus's and minus's of each way because quite frankly there are benefits and considerations for each of these methods of unified messaging

Slide 12 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

So the first method is what's called server based. It's really a single message store for all the messages. So it's a server based model of unified messaging.

Slide 13 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

As voice messages are received by the CallXpress server, those voice messages are moved from that user over to their mailbox on the email server. So as you look at your email client, we saw a snapshot of an outlook client, within your outlook client, you'll see your voice and fax and email messages all appearing within a single folder. It's very easy to manage and access them. This has a number of advantages. A single place for all of your messages. So for those organizations that like to keep archiving of their email messages and would like to have a single archive that would contain all of the electronic communications for sets of users. Well, doing server based unified messaging fits into that strategy very well because now along with their email messages, you have your voice and fax messages as well. So if you have a solution that already archives and indexes your email messages, that same solution, voice and fax messages just piggy back on top of that. So the archiving and saving of messages for later retrieval, later discovery is very easy with a server based solution. You're also piggy-backing on top of the capabilities of the email server that are already there. For example, if you have a number of users with smart phones that already have their emails synchronized to the corporate email server. By default, they're all going to have access to their voice and fax messages as well from those smart phones and smart devices without you having to really do anything for those smart phones. They're already synchronized with this main message database here and voice and fax messages just kind of come along for the ride. There are a few downsides to doing server based unified messaging. There can be additional network traffic while it's not significant it is something that needs to be considered in the overall network traffic especially if the voicemail server is remote from the email server. Obviously, discoverability, Email messages are generally discoverable for public companies. If you have voice and fax messages they are equally discoverable if they reside on the email server. Storage implications in the email system, you now have additional message types that are going to be on the email server. So you have a lot of benefits with server based but there are some considerations that have to be thought of as well when implementing a server based unified messaging solution.

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The next method of unified messaging is called client based unified messaging. Our name for it, our trade name or our product name for it, is integrated client access.

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The way client based unified messaging works with any manufacturer that supports client based unified messaging is voice and fax messages stay on the CallXpress server. They are never moved over to the email server. As a matter of fact, when doing client based unified messaging the email server doesn't even know you're doing unified messaging. It's very non invasive into the email server environment. What you do, really, is go into your email client and you program another mail account. Another imap mail account, in most cases. And, in the case of CallXpress, the CallXpress server essentially becomes an imap mail server, a purpose built scale down imap mail server. So the voice and fax messages appear in a separate inbox. An inbox that would be labeled voicemail messages on CallXpress, or however you want to label that. But a separate folder within the outlook client but the desktop experience is still very similar. You have the same, in many cases, display of the message as you would in a server based environment. The same ID, the same ability to play the messages, and the same notification when new messages arrive. So if you have a sound play or a popup window comes up when a new message comes into your email message folder, that same popup or sound will play when a message comes into your voicemail message folder. So the desktop experience is very similar. It also has the benefit of not including your voice messages in with your email messages for things like discovery, later archiving of the messages, things like that. So it has many of those types of advantages along with that as well. There are some aspects where messages can be a little less accessible. For example, if you have people that frequently use outlook web access, if you're an exchange shop and you have users that frequently use outlook web access to get to their email messages, you will never see your voice messages with an outlook web access because outlook web access only looks at the exchange server. It doesn't look at the other mail servers such as CallXpress. So again, there's pluses and minuses to this method of architecture but for some organizations this is a really prime way to do it because of the separate message stores and the benefit that that gives them in any number of areas.

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The third method is what we call secure unified messaging, it's really kind of a hybrid of the client and server based model.

Slide 17 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

Within this model of unified messaging, the voice messages again stay on the voicemail server. Often times a user will have a notification email message sent over to their regular email inbox. Essentially that notification message just says you have a new voice message and here's a link that you can click and when you click that link, it opens up the CallXpress web phone manager interface, which is a web interface to give you access to the management of all your voice messages. A secure web portal is available to you there. So this has two separate clients to manage your voice messages and fax messages vs. your email messages. But it gives you the big advantage, in CallXpress, of being totally secure. Now there are some manufacturers that provide this separate client access through a web portal and the portal itself can be secure, but the user has the ability to gain access to the WAV file. They can download the Wav file to their work station; they'll play it in the media player for example. Or, they can also put a flash drive in their PC, for example, and I take it off site. Or, attatch that WAV file to an email message that they send outside the organization. For many organizations, taking voice messages and give the users the opportunity to deliver those voice messages external to the organization is a very big consideration that they don't want to take part of. The way we have implemented our secure unified messaging, our web based access to those, is a system administrator can determine or choose what method of playback is supported through this web portal. So you can have the message so when I click the play button when I highlight this message, it rings my telephone and plays it back over the telephone. Or we use secure streaming technology to play the message back through the multimedia capabilities of the work station. Or you can make it so it does download the WAV file, and you can play it with any media player, save it off system, email it, and things like that. The system administrator, though, can choose to disable the download option making it impossible for the user to get access to the actual WAV file that is the message. And when they foreword messages from our web portal, they're forwarding it only to a directory of internal people. So it's very secure for those people for whom you do not want to give access to voice message WAV files to allow them to distribute those WAV files externally. It also is very good for discoverability and restricting the legal aspects of discoverability, things like that, and it has many advantages in that way. Other manufacturers also do provide what they call a secure message access, and often times what you'll find in other manufacturers is rather than securing the web portal like we have done, they'll actually encrypt the WAV file itself. Thus, making that message file unplayable in any other environment. Well there are instances where, for the most part, you don't want particular users to be able to deliver WAV files externally but you may have a requirement to have those WAV files available for other people to be able to foreword out externally. When you encrypt the WAV file, it doesn't matter who sends that message out, it's unplayable by anybody outside the organization. Our solution allows you to secure the users that need to be secured but if you ever do need to get access to the WAV file and make it available externally to the organization, its very eay to make that happen. For example the user could just foreword it to another user who has authorization to authorize the WAV file itself, for example. So, it really is a very good way to secure the users you need to while giving the access you need to other people within the organization as well.

Slide18 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

The fourth method of implementing unified messaging is called simplified unified messaging. This is really kind of a lowest common denominator type of arrangement. In this particular instance, the original voice and fax messages stay on the CallXpress server. But through that notification message that we talked about earlier, we take that same notification message and we attach a copy of the voice or fax message to that notification. So you can see here, here is an email message with a WAV file attachment to it. Then, of course, you can double click that and gain access to it. Those two message files (the one that's on the email server and the one that's on the CallXpress server); there's no synchronization between those two. So if you delete the message out of the email server, that message still is standing here on the voice message server (on the CallXpress). If you call in over the telephone and listen to that voice message over here, the status of that message doesn't change over here. If you delete it off of CallXpress, it doesn't impact here. So, it's a very simplified way of doing unified messaging. It still provides multiple ways to access the messages. But the synchronization has to be taken a look at and some users/ organizations don't want to have multiple copies of the message that have to be handled. However, this is a great solution for some organizations maybe that may have field personnel that may have smart phones or remote access to the email server through their laptop but they don't want to be bothered to call in for voice messages. So you can just forward a copy off here and just automatically have the system purge the message off of CallXpress. Also great for universities that may have student populations that have mailboxes on CallXpress. You can just take those messages, have them forwarded off to whatever email server the student wants it to go to, and the student can have some control over where those messages go whether it's to their university mailbox, maybe their Gmail account, their hotmail account, and then again have CallXpress automatically purge those messages. So there are some instances where this is a very good option and really makes allot of sense. In addition, since there is no synchronization of the messages here, whereas the other three methods of unified messaging required unified messaging client licensing, the simplified method does not require any unified messaging client licensing. It's a standard feature of CallXpress. So it can be deployed far and wide without having any cost impact to the organization whatsoever.

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CallXpress unified messaging works into virtually any email environment out there. Whether its exchange, lotus, GroupWise, any type of premise based email server. Even cloud based solutions such as Google Gmail or exchange online, many of those types of solutions through a secure imap compliance we can integrate into those very easily and very well. So virtually any email environment that you want to get into, virtually any email client. And the unique thing about CallXpress is we can provide integration to multi-le email servers simultaneously. So for those organizations that are going through a transition (maybe they had GroupWise and they're transitioning to exchange or they had exchange and they're transitioning to exchange online or Gmail [a cloud based solution]), CallXpress can integrate to multiple email servers simultaneously, again, assigned on a user per user basis. So as a user shifts from one email server to another, it's very easy, just a couple of clicks in their mailbox and you've now changed what email server you're referencing from their account. For organizations that have multiple email servers within their environment, whether they are the same kind or different kind, we have numerous customers that have maybe multiple exchange servers and GroupWise servers and other types of servers within their environment. We were talking to one university a little while ago that had over 150 different email servers on the campus and we were one of the only unified messaging solutions out there that were able to provide full unified messaging to all of those different email servers simultaneously from the same single CallXpress solution. So, there's very flexible architecture we have allowing you to choose what is the best method for deploying unified messaging along with supporting whatever email environment you have today plus whatever you may have going on tomorrow.

So that's how unified messaging can be implemented and, again, every other manufacturer out there is going to lock you into one or two of those methods. CallXpress is the only manufacturers that support all the methods. So when you take a look at all those different types of technologies and all the different vendors you may be looking at, what of the things that you may need to consider?

Slide 21 - Building Unified Messaging into your UC Strategy

So we kind of broke it down into 5 different areas to focus your consideration on as your evaluating the technology. The first is compliance. So what are the legal requirements within the organization? This is a very important aspect to take a look at. What about the discoverability of messages and the retention of messages? Do you want voice messages to be incorporated within email messages ,which certainly does, in many jurisdictions, make them as discoverable as email messages. Or do you want to restrict that and keep that apart so that there is separate discoverability and retention rules for your different message types. Maybe you're an organization that needs to have them together. Maybe you have different requirements for different users within your organization. CallXpress is unique in its ability to comply with those types of requirements., even if you have multiple different requirements based on the community of users within your organization. Confidentiality, this can be as important as compliance for many organizations (whether it is for legal reasons, HIPAA compliance, for health care organizations, or many other things like that). The taking of voice messages and being able to distribute them externally to the organization and to the enterprise can be a tremendous consideration. CallXpress, again, is unique to allowing you to restrict users from being able to deploy and distribute messages outside the organization or to allow that to happen. You can mix and match so if you have certain communities of users within your organization where confidentiality is a requirement and other people within the organization where it's not a requirement. You can, again, mix and match on a user by user basis what method of unified messaging and what level of message confidentiality you need to maintain. The configuration… the architecture of the system. Is it going to lock you into one particular method of doing unified messaging or two, or if your requirements change. We've taken a look at compliance and confidentiality. What happens if next year those change for your organization? A new law is passed or a new lawsuit gets filed and the rules change for your organization. Some new HIPPA requirements come into effect or there maybe one HIPPA like requirements that change for your organization next year sometime. How flexible is the architecture you're looking at to accommodate those changes. Again, with CallXpress it's very easy. With the click of a mouse you change from one method of unified messaging to the other. So as the needs of the organization change, you can change how CallXpress is deployed. It's really future proofing you by accommodating where you are today and accommodating where you will be tomorrow as well, not only from a compliance and confidentiality viewpoint but also what your using for your email server, as well. Are you going to be changing? Are you going to be moving from one platform to another? That's something that many organizations, especially with cloud based solutions, are taking a serious look at because they can provide some significant economic advantages to the organization. Adding a solution that can accommodate where you are at today, with a premise based solution, and easily with the click of a mouse change to a cloud based solution, have them coexist for a while during the migration, and things like that is a very important thing to consider in how easy is that to make that change with the click of a mouse in CallXpress. Capacity. Maybe you're in a situation where your email servers are running at close to capacity and you have to set severe limits on your users, for example. For message storage, how does that impact your requirements for unified messaging? If it's a server based only solution, you may be in trouble because you're adding additional weight to the email server. CallXpress, again, can accommodate those types of things and allow you to manage those on a user by user basis. So there's very little in CallXpress that's an all or nothing type of a solution. Virtually anything can be assigned on a user by user basis. And then looking at the cost of the solution. Not just the initial cost but also the ongoing cost. Allot of times a unified messaging solution is just kind of brought along almost as a commodity when you're looking at an overall unified communications solution. That can sometimes be not the best way to go for you. Really looking at the total cost of ownership. Things like ongoing software maintenance, what are those types of costs? The ability for other aspects of CallXpress that we hadn't really gotten into; the architecture of CallXpress and how CallXpress systems can be deployed across your enterprise (single system, multiple systems)? The cost to administer the system (if you have multiple systems, what's the cost of administering separate systems and maintaining separate systems). Many of those costs can be significantly lower with CallXpress and the method in which we're architected not just with unified messaging but with the rest of the solution as well The way CallXpress is licensed. Most things on a user by user basis and an a la carte environment. It really gives you the freedom to engineer and architect a solution to best meet your needs today along with accommodating whatever your organization might look like tomorrow. Whether if its if your PBX environment going to change? Are you going from a 10 year old TDM based PBX to a voice over IP solution? Is it the same manufacturer that's providing that solution for you? CallXpress can accommodate those. We can integrate to virtually any telephony environment that's available today and many legacy environments. So if you need to implement a new unified messaging solution today with that 10 year old PBX, how easy can that solution integrate with it without costing you tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the PBX to accommodate the voicemail system? We can integrate to virtually any current and legacy PBX around. We talked about email interaction. Interacting with back end business applications. Communications enabling your other business applications. CallXpress can uniquely do that with some of the API's and tool kits that we have available. And then present space, being able to get present calls connected to where they need to go, quickly and easily, regardless of where the user is located. Work is really an activity, not a location, and CallXpress the presence and notification and personal assistant capabilities, the mobile user features that CallXpress has available are really unrivaled in the industry today.

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So there we go. That's the quick overview of CallXpress, the unified messaging options, and the flexibility, the unique flexible architecture that CallXpress has and has available to you. We'd like to open it up now for questions. If anyone has any questions, you can feel free to put them in the chat window.

Questions: How is UM licensed? Is it system wide or on a per user basis?

That's a great question. CallXpress, virtually everything that impacts a user on CallXpress is assigned on a user by user basis. In addition, the licensing for unified messaging is very unique in CallXpress as well. The licensing for unified messaging is on a user by user basis, it's not an all or nothing thing, so not everybody has to be unified messaging and has to have the advanced unified messaging cow purchased for them. That's strictly on a user by user basis. We give you 50 of them for free and you can have as many additional as you want on any CallXpress system. Another unique thing about the way we do our licensing is the unified messaging licensing that we have is for the number of desktop unified messaging users that you have. So in other words, users that need to access their voicemail messages from some desktop type of an interface. Now that can be in your outlook client, a web browser, or your mobile smart phone. Those types of desktop, whether its full desktop or mini type desktop interfaces, that's what our licensing applies for. Telephone portion of unified messaging, which means getting telephone access to your voice messages and your email messages and fax messages and being able to process and manage those email messages (for example save them foreword them, delete them, reply to them, things like that). There is no per user licensing for telephone unified messaging. The only portion of unified messaging that has licensing associated with it is the desktop portion of unified messaging and, again, that's on a per user basis as well.

Great, I had a few people ask about if this presentation is going to be available so there is two ways. It has been recorded today so if you want to listen to this exact version again or for your colleagues this will be posted on AVST.com. If you want a copy of this presentation, you got reminders from webcast, so just go ahead and reply to that and I'll make sure you do get a copy of this PowerPoint as well. So once again, if you have any other questions press star seven to un-mute your line. OK, I think we are good. I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today. This does conclude our webinar and thank you. Bye.

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