In a sense, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange can treat voice mail as just another form of e-mail, delivering messages to the Inbox. Unless otherwise noted, these add-ins do not work with Outlook 98 or Outlook 2000 in Internet Mail Only mode. They may not work with Outlook 2010 64-bit.
Personal Voice Mail Services
These services use the modem on a desktop computer.
Whether or not you can receive voice mail directly on your PC is largely a factor of the type of modem you have. In general, you need a modem that supports the full Unimodem V standard. Many such modems come with their own standalone voice mail program that doesn’t integrate with Outlook.
Tools
Voice telephony software that displays Outlook contacts using CallerID, creates new contact records where needed and delivers incoming voice mail and faxes to your Outlook Inbox. | |
Fax service with OCR, voicemail, direct PC-to-PC mail, caller ID and many other features. Includes ISDN support. Does not work with Outlook 98 or Outlook 2000 in Internet Mail Only mode. | |
Integrates voice mail and fax with either Exchange and Outlook. Also notifies your pager of incoming messages and allows you to compose pager messages. Logs incoming and outgoing calls and supports Caller ID. |
Enterprise Voice Mail Systems
These services are for organizations using Exchange Server.
They either integrate directly with the Exchange Server, which means little or no change to the client is required, or use a separate service in the Exchange/Outlook profile to make the connection to a voice mail server. This is by no means a complete list of those available. Some of them include client Caller ID support, fax support, SMS, etc.
Tools
An Exchange compliant voicemail provider, Asterisk is a complete PBX in software, providing Voicemail services with Directory, Call Conferencing, Interactive Voice Response and Call Queuing. It has support for three-way calling, caller ID services, ADSI, SIP and H.323 (as both client and gateway). Asterisk does voice over IP in many protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware. It runs on Linux and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. | |
Various services that provide you with calendar and contacts, with Outlook sync, plus a mail account, voicemail, and send and receive faxes. | |
Active Voice's Repartee Unified Messaging System provides small and mide-size businesses flexible message management from the desktop, telephone or Internet. Whether you're in the office or on the road, you can increase responsiveness by accessing your voice, fax and e-mail messages from one convenient inbox and by handling real-time calls as you receive them. Solutions available for large enterprises and video mail services. | |
OpenScape Xpressions unified messaging addresses this requirement by providing enterprise employees a single unified multi-media mailbox from which users can retrieve and manage voice, fax, email, and SMS messages. Because employees can access their message inbox via a PC or from any telephone, OpenScape Xpressions is ideal for enterprises that have highly mobile employees whose response time to customers matters. | |
TeleVantage offers a full complement of rich features that help your employees work more efficiently.Users can instantly locate and check the status of co-workers, initiate conference calls or access contact information, so they spend less time searching for numbers and transferring calls. Sophisticated “find me” call routing capabilities ensure that your employees receive important calls at any time, and in any location. Voicemail messages are consolidated within a single account for quick, easy retrieval and response. Your team can record and store voice messages or live conversations, and create personalized, targeted voice and broadcast messages that save time and enhance communication. |
More Information
Articles that may interest you:
Last reviewed on Sep 11, 2011
Hot Topics