Testing the Messenger
The Windows NT Magazine Lab tested Octel Unified Messenger using Outlook as the user interface. (Configuring a new mailbox through the default Exchange client is very similar.) When you open Outlook after creating a new mailbox, select New when Outlook asks you for a profile name. Next, select the check boxes that correspond to the information services your new subscriber will use--Exchange Server, Microsoft Mail, or Internet Mail--and enter a profile name for the new mailbox. Outlook will request the location of the subscriber's personal address book. Enter the location, then exit the profile screen. Outlook's logon screen will show your new mailbox profile.
When you have set up your users' profiles, they can fine-tune their mailbox's configuration by selecting Voice Mail Options from Outlook's Tools menu. Users can choose whether to play and record voicemail and email from their telephone handsets or through their workstation's multimedia programs. They can change their passwords and select whether to receive urgent messages first, most recent messages first, or most recent messages last when they access the system through a telephone handset. Finally, Octel Unified Messenger prompts users to record their voicemail greetings through either a telephone handset or a microphone (if their workstation has a sound card). Users are set to go after they've recorded these greetings.
Octel Unified Messenger's features are very similar to the corresponding features in Outlook and popular voicemail products, yet this product is nothing like the products you now use. Think of Octel Unified Messenger as the junction between the email and voicemail worlds. You can retrieve voicemail through Outlook and retrieve email messages by dialing in to the voicemail interface.
I found Octel Unified Messenger's text-to-speech conversion capability to be the program's most enticing feature. Users can retrieve both voicemail and email messages by calling in to the Octel Unified Messenger system through a telephone handset or by playing the messages on a multimedia computer. Message recipients who do not use Octel Unified Messenger can listen to messages through a multimedia computer by installing the Octel Audio Compression Manager (free for download from http://www.octel.com/unified.messenger/acm.html).
When you call in to a mailbox that contains both voicemail and email, Octel Unified Messenger tells you how many voicemail and email messages you have and asks which type of message you want to review first. When you review email messages, the software notifies you of the message's priority and lets you know whether the message contains any attachments. After the software reads the content of the message to you, you can use your telephone keypad to save, delete, replay, forward, or reply to the message. If you choose to reply to the message, you can record a new message. Octel Unified Messenger will send your reply as a compressed voice file attached to an email. Screen 2 shows Octel Unified Messenger's message creation process. (Octel Unified Messenger automatically adds three icons to the right side of the Outlook toolbar: New Voice Message, Reply to Sender with Voice, and Reply to All with Voice. The software offers these icons for Exchange, but users must add them to the toolbar using the Customize Toolbar option on the Tools menu.)
Deciphering the computer-generated voice that reads email messages takes some practice, but the system works, and listening to email is fun. Converting text to speech is a CPU-intensive task, so Octel Unified Messenger limits the system to a maximum of 12 simultaneous text-to-speech conversions. Through proprietary compression algorithms, the program converts text to speech at a rate of roughly 1 second of conversion time per 10 seconds of speech (e.g., the software takes 6 seconds to convert email text into a 60-second spoken message).
The frequency with which your staff performs text-to-speech conversions affects the capacity of your system. Octel Unified Messenger can use up to six Rhetorex ISA PC voice cards in the voice server. Each Rhetorex card can have up to four ports, and each port can support 30 users to 50 users, depending on each user's level of activity. Thus, Octel Unified Messenger can handle between 720 users and 1200 users from one server.
Lucent plans to add fax capabilities to the Octel Unified Messenger system. This addition will make the product a more comprehensive messaging solution. This product is difficult to dislike, especially because of its seamless integration with Outlook and Exchange. Still, Octel Unified Messenger is just the first in an array of new telephony offerings for the NT platform. If this product is any indication of the software to come, we're in for a treat.
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