Partial data dump. Maybe more will come later, but there is a lot of stuff
in the archives.
1. Messaging & Collaboration
Both are poorly defined. There are really at least three distinctly
different things that people mean when they use the term "messaging," and
probably many more.
One kind of messaging is about RFC 822 and friends. It is simple body part 3
e-mail, with a possibility of attachments. It includes the X.400 and
proprietary systems too, but the RFC's define the core of reality.
A second kind deals with low level application components talking to each
other, usually through a brokerage service such as CORBA or COM. It gets
confused with RFC 822 messaging because there is such a thing as "message
enabled applications." Actually there are two kinds. One uses high level
applications like spreadsheets and databases talking to each other via
e-mail. The other happens at the level of C libraries. Unfortunately, both
use the exact same name ("message enabled applications") so much of the
literature about this topic is confused gibberish and tripe (that's being
kind).
The third kind of messaging is a generic reference to the realm of tools
that come with Exchange and Notes, and includes all of that stuff that we
expect a "messaging system" to take care of. Which gets us into
"collaboration."
Collaboration is seamless communication that permits mixing voice, video,
and data at will, as needed, in real-time or on a store and forward basis,
all supported by appropriate notification and alert services, and most
importantly end user policy enforcement point (PEP) tools (think "rules
engines").
2. Unified Messaging
Oh sys admin, where art thou? There is a line in the film where Junior
tells Pappy that "we gotta get some of that reform." Unified Messaging is
sort of like that. One of the positive attributes of X.400 (1988 or later)
was that it did a very good job of generalizing the e-mail kind of messaging
services. The RFC's have copied that poorly, but the basic idea is that
there is no real difference between e-mail, voice-mail, fax, video mail, or
higher level message enabled applications messages. They are all simply
specific cases of the same thing. Unified messaging means treating them as
such. So, a message store should not care what the message types are that
it contains, except of course that it should be able to identify the message
types by attribute. It is absolutely ludicrous to talk about unified
messaging and non-integrated or separate message stores. And yet, when it
became popular to talk about unified messaging a few years ago, all of the
vendors of the legacy systems said "we gotta get some of that unified
messaging." In fact, with perfectly straight faces, all of these turkeys
began claiming that their legacy products already had it. It really was
that silly, and almost exactly as portrayed in the movie.
But even more pathetic, was that most of the customer community bought all
of that nonsense, and people actually began calling all sorts of non-unified
systems "unified." It was sickening. It still is. Using one client to
view multiple non-integrated message stores is not unified messaging, even
if you can name three vendors that say it is. But I concede, you can never
underestimate the gullibility of an IS techie.
1. Why it is happening (who it is for)? Let's face it, no one would start
from scratch and invent DTMF, ISDN, the IEEE 802.3 family, voice mail,
e-mail, FAX and FAX data as a family of solutions for equipping the
Enterprise. The Klingons would win every time. In many ways it is about
cleaning up the past 130 years of electronic communications systems and
getting to something that makes sense in the current era.
2. Who is making it happening (vendors)? No. You are. All technology
expands and reaches critical mass based on demand. Ask anyone who lost
money in the .COM bust. At the end of the day, sales drive everything.
3. How is it happening (solutions)? One desktop or mobile user at a time.
More later.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dupler, Craig
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 4:13 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: Messaging & collaboration (Unified Messaging)
Catch me in the right mood and maybe I will do a data dump for you . . .
-----Original Message-----
From: Leonard Lee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 21:33
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: Messaging & collaboration (Unified Messaging)
Iam looking for information on:
1. Messaging & Collaboration
2. Unified Messaging
The type of information I am looking for is on:
1. Why it is happening (who it is for)
2. Who is making it happening (vendors)
3. How is it happening (solutions)
Looking for Articles? Consortiums?
Note: I've got Technet, so I already have the Microsoft view on this topic.
Thanks in advanced,
Leonard
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