Nortel enhances its multimedia messaging
By David Rohde
Network World, 09/28/98
Northern Telecom, Inc. wants to tempt more users into trying unified voice,
fax and e-mail messaging with a new platform that offers speech recognition
and support for multiple e-mail clients.
Nortel this week is expected to introduce a new multimedia messaging
system called CallPilot. It's a Windows NT-based adjunct server to a PBX
that stores voice and fax messages in a single mailbox. Using a LAN-side
connection, it then pops header information for these messages onto desktop
e-mail interfaces.
CallPilot differs from some other unified messaging systems in several ways.
First, it is not built to a particular e-mail client but supports many of them
(see graphic). Second, it supports a new IETF standard called Voice Profile
for Internet Mail, which enables users to forward and broadcast voice-mail
over a wide-area network without incurring toll charges.
Finally, CallPilot offers users a wide range of options to manage their
messages. Users have a choice of desktop point-and-click functions or
ordinary telephone inputs to play messages. But they can also speak
pre-defined spoken commands from their offices or remote locations to
compose, send, delete, skip and play back messages.
The range of message-management options appeals to Lynne [stet sp first
name] Jones, a technical analyst and system administrator at the Federal
Home Loan Mortgage Corp., the mortgage wholesaler popularly known as
Freddie Mac.
For example, the speech recognition feature means “you can use it from your
cell phone without having to press any buttons. That's a major feature right
there,” says Jones, who is running a 30-user trial of CallPilot from Freddie
Mac's operations center in Reston, Va.
The speech-rec feature is context-sensitive, says John Myers, general
manager of Nortel's messaging-systems unit. For example, commands used
to compose and send a message intentionally won't work when a user is
playing back a message. And CallPilot's simplified vocabulary enables the
system to offer shared ports, unlike some speech-rec systems that dedicate
a single port to each potential user in an attempt to recognize unique natural
speech patterns.
Myers says the net effect is a lower total cost of ownership for an
enterprise's messaging systems. But Freddie Mac's Jones cautions that
CallPilot “takes a little getting used to because you have to learn the
commands it's looking for.” She adds that the system does not recognize
some foreign accents.
And CallPilot does involve a number of charges. Nortel will offer two
hardware options for the adjunct server – a mid-range Pentium-class server
that starts at $45,000 for eight ports and 30 hours of message storage, or a
rack-mounted server provided on an OEM basis from Texas Micro, Inc.
starting at $65,000. Then the user must pay on a per-user basis up to $100
per seat for the speech-rec option and up to $50 for fax support.
One way users of Nortel's flagship Meridian 1 PBX can shave the cost a bit:
skip the adjunct hardware and have the system installed on Meridian
extension shelf as a single-board Pentium server. That base configuration
costs $20,000 for four ports and 30 hours of storage. Nortel officials say
they are building CallPilot interfaces for competitors' PBXs but the initial
version, generally available at the end of the year, will be available only for
Meridian 1.
Nortel: (800) 466-7835. |
