Dataquest does not predict strong demand for unified messaing for another year or two. Problem is Octel's UM uses MS Exchange as post office, and most corporate email systems are not Exchange-based. Unified Messenger does not support Lotus Notes, or other message post offices. Not likely that a corporation will throw out email system to get UM. They are have announced Notes support, which will be significant. However, there is no timetable for release. Also, I have not heard any confirmation or denial, but there is whispering about UM GA slipping to end of year. If anybody has any info on that, please let me know. Lastly, I have not seen any spec on capacity. It will be important in selling to larger corperations that you can support a lot of users and ports. Currently, NT and Exchange can not suport high capcity systems (MS is addressing this problem in NT 5.0).
Octel gets a lot of kudos for their announcement and demos. They definately get marketing momentum. And They should make some money of of the first release, but for a $600M company, the initial revenues from this product will be insignificant. The marketing momentum of this product could, however, help to sell other Octel VM systems. So, indirectly, Unified Messager COULD have a substantial impact on the bottom line. |
