Unified Messaging in großen Unternehmen

Abstract

This paper is about Unified Messaging in large enterprises. Messaging in enterprises is usually characterised by infrastructures for telephony and E-Mail already being in place. Enterprises are often reluctant to replace existing systems simply in order to enhance functionality. This is due to the fact that large investments had already been made and companies are expecting a return on investment. p]Unified Messaging integrates different communication means. It supports employees who travel a lot and others who receive many messages of different types. This paper begins with a description of Unified Messaging functions. Then we describe typical Unified Messaging architectures. One of our main conclusions is that choosing well designed communication interfaces (usually by employing standard protocols) is more important than simply choosing a good Unified Messaging product. In section 3 we describe a Unified Messaging architecture suitable for large enterprises. This architecture fits well into already existing architectures. We conclude with an estimation of investment costs and operation costs for such an architecture.