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Press one for sales. Press two in a hopeless effort to get technical support. Press one for answers to questions you dont have. Press two if youre gullible and pessimistic. Press two if youre willing to buy something just so you can talk to a human being.
From the comic strip Dilbert by Scott Adams
Electronic messaging systems offer a great advantage for certain applications compared with standard, data, video and image systems, and networks. While facsimile, voice processing, and e-mail systems each deal with information in a different native form, and while each serves its own unique purpose, they increasingly are being merged to deliver unified messaging.
While these technologies are very different in their basic characteristics and, certainly in their application, there are some commonalities. They all reside on a computer platform of some description and they all make use of analog and/or digital circuits, being of greatest advantage when the systems are networked. Perhaps most importantly, electronic messaging systems are characterized by their abilities to provide store-and-forward communications. In other words, the systems accept a message and store it in temporary memory in a users mailbox, where it may be accessed at a later time and perhaps be forwarded subsequently to another user.
Store-and-forward technology adds significant value, as it overcomes the requirement for realtime communication between people or machines. The specific benefits of store-and-forward technologies include the fact that differences in time zones are mitigated as the message can be created during business hours in one location, and accessed by the recipient during normal business hours at the distant location. Whether the parties are at opposite ends of the country or are separated by continents, communications can be effected on a non-realtime basis. Additionally, systems and messages can be accessed over the network from remote locations (e.g., field offices, hotels and client sites) on a 24-hour basis. Finally, the messages tend to be abbreviated, containing only the necessary information. This is especially true of voice mail, which replaces the normal human-to-human conversational mode of communications. As social animals, humans tend to socialize before getting down to the business at hand. We are much less likely to attend to interpersonal niceties via a machine-enabled, one-way communication.
While all of these devices initially were standalone systems based on proprietary standards, contemporary systems are computer-based messaging systems that are networked and are based on standards that ensure their ability to interoperate at some minimum level. Additionally, they often are accessed, or are accessible, through a PBX, KTS, Centrex, CO, or ACD system. They also increasingly are enhanced through the application of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) technology. CTI allows the user to access a variety of messages through the switch from a LAN-attached PC workstation, using a single and intuitive Graphic User Interface (GUI). Finally, the separate technologies of facsimile, voice processing. and e-mail are being integrated to yield unified messaging systems to allow voice, text, image and even video messages to be blended, enhancing the composite effectiveness and impact of the individual messages.
Facsimile comes from the Latin fac simile, translated as make similar. Facsimile systems are unique as they transmit image information, rather than audio or data. Additionally, they generally are based on electrochemical processes at the receiving end. The first practical fax machine was built in 1837 by Edward Davy, who abandoned the invention shortly thereafter. The concept was revived in 1846 by Alexander Bain, a Scottish clockmaker. The Bain device was used commercially in the United States and England, where it competed with the Cooke-Wheatstone telegraph, which transmitted images through etching metal with a stylus. Facsimile was not widely deployed until the 1960s and 1970s, when the cost of the devices was lowered enough for the technology to find relatively significant market acceptance in commercial, education, and government applications. The low cost of current fax technology renders it cost-effective even for widespread consumer use.
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