Users will be thrilled to manage e-mail, faxes, and voice mail in a
single place, but only one of the universal inboxes we built won't wrinkle
your brow or empty your wallet.
Users are asking for a central place to manage all of their business communication
-- the so-called universal inbox -- but you're committed to a messaging
platform. Do the benefits of adding fax and voice mail capabilities to
your e-mail package outweigh the time and money it will take?
The issues
Ease of telephony transition
Degree of centralized administration
Added value of inbox "experience"
Cost to add services
The options
Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3 solution
GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution
Notes/Intuity/TOS solution
The answer
Only the GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution found a cost-benefit sweet
spot. In fact, its universal inbox was the best of those compared and the
least expensive to build.
You know his name, and sometimes the two of
you pass in the hall and exchange a nod or brief hello. That's all, though.
He's from another department, and your paths don't cross much. But knowing
both of you, we think a relationship is inevitable, even though we're not
sure how it will all work out. He's the phone guy, and it's time for an
introduction.
A union of some sort between LANs and telephone networks -- generally called
computer-telephony integration, or CTI -- has been in the cards for a while.
In a connected world, anything that helps manage communication gets the
fast track. In this case, that means a growing clamor for centralized messaging.
And although our handsets may have e-mail some day (for that matter, so
may our cheese graters), right now the only place to integrate LAN- and
PBX-based communication is on an e-mail platform. With integrated messaging,
users can manage nearly all of their business communication (fax, voice
mail, and e-mail) through a single, familiar interface. Voila -- the fabled
universal inbox. There's a catch, though. Guess who's responsible for the
e-mail platform.
SHACKING UP. For this Comparison, we created three universal inboxes,
adding fax services and voice mail capabilities to three leading messaging
packages: Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0, Novell's GroupWise 5.0, and Lotus
Notes 4.12c. Don't think of this Comparison as Exchange vs. GroupWise vs.
Notes, however. We did not score the e-mail features of each solution,
assuming instead that you are committed to a particular e-mail platform
and are interested in how easy or difficult it would be to integrate fax
and voice mail with it.
We didn't want to make building these solutions any more complicated than
it had to be, so in most cases we used vendor recommendations for guidance
in assembling the solution bundles. And because most of these products
are sold by VARs that include installation as part of the deal, we asked
them to spend a couple of days in our lab helping us get their respective
wares up and running, scoring their efforts as part of our implementation
category. We used a NetWare 4.11 log-in server and Lucent Technologies'
Enterprise Communications Server Model G3I PBX with each of the following
solutions.
First, we integrated RightFax's RightFax NT, Version 4.5, and Applied Voice
Technology (AVT)'s CallXpress3, Version 4.0, with Microsoft's Exchange.
Bundling the well-regarded RightFax and CallXpress3 was an easy decision.
Last year, AVT bought RightFax and currently operates the company as a
wholly owned subsidiary. Both companies wanted to work together on this
Comparison and both wanted to work with Exchange. (The landscape will change
slightly later this month when AVT releases its latest version of CallXpress,
dubbed CallXpressNT. AVT will offer RightFax as an optional module for
CallXpressNT.)
Cheyenne Software's Fax-Serve 5.0, CallWare Technologies' CallWare 5.2,
and Novell's GroupWise make up the second solution. All three companies
were eager to play together in this Comparison, and Cheyenne and Novell
have a very well-orchestrated marketing effort to promote FaxServe for
GroupWise.
Our third solution comes from Lotus and Lucent -- companies that formalized
a partnership about a year ago. To a Notes server we added Lucent's Intuity
Multimedia Messaging Server, a hardware/software voice mail "box"
that can be enhanced with fax-server and other capabilities. The third
and most crucial piece is Lotus' Telephony OneStop 1.0, a Notes object
that acts as a bridge between Intuity and the Notes inbox. (Although Intuity
works only with Notes now, Lucent says it will add Exchange support later
this year, with GroupWise support to follow.)
Although CTI may be an unfamiliar market, the customary methods of assessing
IT purchases still apply. Reducing the points of administration, for instance,
is more important than ever in multiheaded solutions such as the ones we
tested. Likewise, the synergy of the universal inbox is squandered if the
user's experience is confusing.
For our last piece of advice, allow us to play matchmaker again. If you
have plans to implement a centralized messaging solution, start getting
chummy with your company's telecommunications specialist now. You'll be
joined at the hip eventually and without some getting-to-know-you time,
linking a LAN and a PBX will be more like When Worlds Collide than
Love Connection.
Results at a glance
Like any successful marriage, computer-telephony integration (CTI) takes
work. The payoff, hopefully, is greater than the sum of the parts -- a
central message repository in which users can send and receive e-mail,
faxes, and voice mail. We built three such universal inboxes (one each
atop Microsoft Exchange, Novell's GroupWise, and Lotus Notes) and found
that two of the three weren't worth the trouble.
CTI means adapting to unfamiliar conventions and learning what can seem
like a foreign language. Even the concept of storage is different, based
on minutes instead of megabytes. (A quick rule of thumb: Budget about 10MB
for each hour of voice.)
Of course, the appeal of GUI-based fax and call-processing products is
their attempt to put a friendly face on this unfamiliar world. Just don't
expect windows and menus to eliminate the legwork it takes to marry data
and voice networks.
When building the Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3 universal inbox, we weren't
too irked by the back-end work -- although significant, it wasn't unmanageable
-- but the fruit of this labor was a disappointment.
The flip side was the Notes/Intuity/TOS solution. Its universal inbox was
pretty good and even had some unique features, but it took far too much
time and money to build it.
The package that was worth the effort -- the GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare
solution -- had the best of everything. It was easy to integrate on the
back end, offered the most satisfying client-side experience, and was by
far the least expensive. If you're looking for a centralized messaging
solution, this is one marriage that will work. We'll stand as witnesses.
GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution
Bottom Line: 7.5
In many Comparisons, the winner ekes out a victory with the most acceptable
trade-off of costs and benefits. Not so with the GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare
solution, which trounced the competition with unsurpassed administrative
features, the best universal inbox, and the cheapest sticker price. As
with the other solutions, building this universal inbox took legwork, but
FaxServe and CallWare made this as pleasant as possible. We particularly
appreciated managing FaxServe as a Novell Directory Services (NDS) object
on the NetWare 4.11 tree. Once CallWare gets this capability (the company
promises it in the second quarter with Version 5.3), this solution will
have no significant management drawbacks. On the other hand, this solution's
universal inbox has no significant drawbacks right now. With descriptive
icons and labels and well-built fax and call-processing clients, this solution
delivers on the promise of centralized messaging. Call management in a
GUI, particularly, is a breakthrough experience, and this solution doesn't
waste the benefits of Windows-based call processing with an uneven integration
or deal-breaking outlays of time and money. On a 500-client LAN, for instance,
you can add universal-inbox capabilities for less than $120 per seat.
Pros
Visual cues for different message types
Lowest price
NDS management of FaxServe
Easy account administration in FaxServe
Good troubleshooting features in CallWare
Strong CallWare client
First-class CallWare documentation
Cons
No NDS management of CallWare in NetWare 4.11
Forced to download API gateway
No billing-code tracking in FaxServe
Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3 solution Bottom Line: 6.3 The Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3 solution was disappointing, but there
was a diamond in the rough. We'll get to that in a column or so, but for
now think of this solution as one of unfulfilled promise. Our efforts,
although eased by gracious installs and few CTI prerequisites, fell as
flat as Pat Boone turning metal-head. When we saw the inbox we'd built,
it seemed hardly worth the effort. Our chief complaint was CallXpress3's
use of a separate store on the Exchange tree -- not our definition of a
universal inbox. The bright spot? Well, if this were a Comparison of fax
servers, the sparkling RightFax would be a clear winner. It offered unmatched
management features and a client-side utility that had everything we were
looking for. But this isn't a Comparison of fax servers, and although RightFax
raised this entry's overall score, it couldn't carry the solution on its
back.
Pros
Best all-around fax tool
Easy user-list import in RightFax
Painless CallXpress3 install over OS/2
Excellent management and troubleshooting capabilities in CallXpress3
Cons
Separate CallXpress3 message store in Exchange
No descriptive inbox icons
Notes/Intuity/TOS solution Bottom Line: 5.3 This solution had the opposite problem of the Exchange/Right-Fax/CallXpress3
solution. We liked the product of this labor -- we just didn't like the
labor. This solution committed what we consider a cardinal sin: It had
too many points of administration -- the log-in server, Notes, Intuity,
Telephony OneStop 1.0 (TOS), and the PBX. That's five by our count. You'll
cringe every time you hear there's been a new hire. We hope there's a special
ring of fire for TOS: Its configuration involved adding users one at a
time rather than by Notes group. Lastly, indicative of the product's telecommunications
foundation, Lucent's Intuity takes a lot of getting used to if you aren't
CTI-savvy. To its credit, Intuity offers its own rewards: a text-to-speech
option that could be an answered prayer for some mobile users and the capability
to manage a single extension as both a fax and voice line. This solution's
universal inbox was also better integrated than that of the Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3
solution. Unfortunately, all these benefits couldn't outweigh the blood,
sweat, tears, and dollars we spent putting this solution together.
Components Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0
RightFax NT, Version 4.5
CallXpress3, Version 4.0
RightFax and CallXpress3 are fairly painless to administer, but as with
all the solutions, be sure you have a good grasp on your mail system before
taking on these additional responsibilities: The extra work is not inconsequential.
Unfortunately, in this case the back-end labor doesn't pay off at the client
-- the Exchange-based inbox is the least universal of the bunch.
If you build it Showing initial promise, this solution had the cleanest, safest network
structure. We didn't double-up on any box, keeping log-in, call-processing,
mail, and fax services on their own servers. This was partly the result
of vendor recommendation (RightFax suggested running its product on a separate
server) and partly due to the nature of CallXpress3, a hardware/software
combination that's similar -- on the surface -- to a traditional voice
mail system.
We were a bit fatalistic, though, when learning that the CallXpress3 software
runs atop OS/2 Warp Server 3.0 -- an OS that's not our first choice for
administration. But our fear was unwarranted. CallXpress3 is a self-contained
box (in this case, a 486/33sx with 32MB of RAM), and we never had to work
in OS/2. Of course, this would have been little comfort if the call-processing
software itself hadn't been as easy to administer as it was. Perhaps recognizing
the liability -- perceived or real -- of running on OS/2, Applied Voice
Technology (AVT) will release a new version of its software, CallXpressNT,
in about a month. As the name suggests, the reconstituted CallXpress will
run on Windows NT only. The company says it will continue to sell and support
CallXpress3 on OS/2 for the time being, but we suspect development efforts
are already winding down.
If AVT makes the platform jump successfully, CallXpressNT will be a winner.
CallXpress3 certainly is. Adding or deleting a single mailbox or a group
of mailboxes is very easy, and we could make batch changes to a group of
mailboxes by using one mailbox as a template. CallXpress3's reporting features
are strong as well, letting us save reports to read or print later. The
product includes a handy backup option, and you can add a modem for remote
administration. Finally, CallXpress3's switch-diagnostics mode makes the
leap into computer-telephony integration (CTI) a little less scary. It
captures port data and displays PBX activity in an accessible, easy-to-read
manner.
Comprising Server, WorkServer, and BoardServer modules and the FaxAdmin
application, RightFax's management tools aren't as concentrated as CallXpress3's,
but they're just as well-organized. RightFax offers the most fax capabilities
of the comparison, and distributing those features across several programs
meant we never got lost. RightFax is the only product to offer a full-featured
signature-file option, trackable billing codes, and least-cost routing,
which lets administrators queue faxes for delivery when phone rates are
cheaper. Finally, importing NT and NetWare user lists for RightFax is painless
-- critical when building a universal inbox.
You'll be sorry After all our legwork, experiencing this solution's universal inbox was
a letdown. Unlike the GroupWise/Fax-Serve/CallWare solution, this solution
has no visual cues to distinguish different types of messages. We couldn't
access e-mail and fax messages through a telephone like we could with the
Notes/Intuity/TOS solution. You have to run CallXpress3 with Microsoft
Mail, cc:Mail, or Notes instead of Exchange.
We also weren't thrilled with CallXpress3's integration with Exchange.
The biggest problem is that CallXpress3 uses a separate store on the Exchange
tree for its messages. This violated our sense of what a universal inbox
should be: a single window in which to manage different types of communication.
AVT says it will fix this in a future version but not in the imminent CallXpressNT.
Once retrieved from the CallXpress3 server, voice mail in the Exchange
inbox is simply an e-mail with a .WAV file attachment. When you double-click
the e-mail, a small VCR-like control panel (an applet in CallXpress3's
client tool, Desktop Message Manager) opens to play the file. You can play
messages through a PC's sound card or a handset like you can with the other
solutions. The full Desktop Message Manager application (Version 1.0) does
a good job handling user options such as recording a greeting or changing
a passcode.
RightFax's integration with Exchange was much better than CallXpress3's.
When a fax is routed into the RightFax server from the PBX, RightFax sends
an e-mail notification to the recipient's Exchange inbox. Double-clicking
the notification transmits the fax attachment and opens FaxUtil, RightFax's
user interface. Within FaxUtil, we could view a fax, print it, or use the
optional optical character recognition module to convert it to editable
text. And because the fax was then just an e-mail with a file attachment,
we could use Exchange to manage it like any other piece of e-mail -- replying
to it, forwarding it, or filing it.
We used FaxUtil to send faxes, and this is where RightFax really excelled.
From a single dialog box, we could easily address faxes, assign billing
codes, set transmission details and priority, and add cover-sheet notes.
RightFax was so good that it buoyed the score of an otherwise average solution.
In fact, if we wanted to extract the best fax tool in this Comparison,
both for administrators and users, we would pick RightFax without hesitation.
The GoupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution makes the legwork of setting up
a universal inbox fairly easy. However, unlike the Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3
solution, your work isn't wasted here. This solution delivered the best
client-side experience of this Comparison.
Hardware is cheap insurance
On our 10-client test network, Cheyenne opted to install FaxServe on the
same server that was running GroupWise. Unless you are administering a
similarly small group, we think you'll prefer to set up a dedicated fax
server. An e-mail server is too important to burden with other services,
and with hardware as cheap as it is, there's little excuse not to distribute
resources. CallWare suggested running its product on a separate server.
Despite this doubling-up on the mail server, we liked this solution from
the start. FaxServe, particularly, integrates very tightly with NetWare.
Once installed, it becomes an Novell Directory Services (NDS) object at
the root of the NetWare tree, allowing an administrator to use NWAdmin
for one-step management. At the time of our testing, CallWare could exist
as an NDS object only in NetWare 4.10, but the company says a fix for 4.11
will be available in Version 5.3, due in the second quarter. Adding users
from the NetWare user base was simple for both products, as was modifying
settings once users were imported. CallWare also made it easy to administer
ports from NetWare's console.
FaxServe's error-message display was thorough and noted problems such as
unrouted faxes and console errors. Its reporting features are adequate,
though not as good as RightFax's. Still, they will probably be all you
need. However, CallWare's report generator, a separate NetWare Loadable
Module that is called CWRPT, is very extensive. CWRPT offered just about
every prepackaged report we could imagine, but you can create your own
if you think of something we didn't. You can also schedule reports to run
in the background. If you need another troubleshooting option, CallWare's
trace feature -- a verbose text display of every step in a voice message's
path from PBX to inbox -- will come in handy.
Although FaxServe offers a signature-file feature, it's a far cry from
RightFax's signature-file database. FaxServe offers little more than the
capability for a user to add a PCX file to the bottom of a fax. There is
no way for an administrator to manage these PCX files and no way to secure
them short of assigning NetWare rights to individual signature files.
Like the other solutions, FaxServe has a print-to-fax feature. However,
unique to this solution, Cheyenne also includes a rendering agent that
runs on one or more networked Windows workstations. Although FaxServe can
handle several file formats natively, a rendering agent lets users send
any other type of file (assuming its parent application is loaded on the
rendering-agent workstation) from their inboxes to the fax server for delivery.
This isn't that great a benefit, though; a user can always print-to-fax
from any application, and a stand-alone rendering agent requires hardware
and additional licenses for any software loaded on it.
You're worth it
Once we had put it all together, the GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare universal
inbox showed us the real benefits of centralized messaging; it wasn't just
a nice proof-of-concept. Thanks to GroupWise's descriptive icons and labels,
viewing and managing all sorts of messages is a breeze. Voice messages
delivered via CallWare have their own icon -- a telephone that is on the
hook for new messages and off the hook for ones that have been played.
Unfortunately, faxes don't get their own icons; they arrive in the e-mail
inbox as text notifications with PCX file attachments. However, we could
tell at a glance that a particular message was a fax instead of an e-mail
because both its subject and sender lines prominently include the word
"Fax." Still, we wish the solution had gone the extra mile and
offered a unique fax icon.
If you're thinking -- "I have voice mail. Why would I want telephone
messages in my computer?" -- a quick look at CallWare's messaging
control panel would answer your question. Performing even basic tasks in
a voice mail system, such as forwarding a message to multiple recipients
or creating a mailing list, means entering long, cryptic keystrings. Most
people don't bother.
With CallWare's friendly face, however, these tasks, and much more, are
a snap. We could forward voice messages with written comments, schedule
them for future delivery, or send copies to whomever we chose. We particularly
liked the notification feature, which lets users schedule a telephone or
pager number to be called at a specific time. It's a perfect appointment
reminder or alarm-clock substitute.
Although FaxServe's client, BitWare, didn't offer quite as much as RightFax's,
it still has enough tools to keep users organized and efficient. The main
window and palette is well-planned, letting you easily mark up, magnify,
rotate, invert, and edit your faxes. BitWare offers thorough log options,
with thumbnail views of received and sent faxes.
Like a failed marriage of two blue bloods, the Lotus-Lucent partnership
is one that, at least in this instance, looks good in the society pages
but is a mess in the mansion. In fact, the weakness of the Notes/Intuity/TOS
solution is a testament to how difficult it is to combine the worlds of
data and voice. We felt that these two competent players were pulling in
opposite directions and couldn't meet in the middle.
It's smart for Lucent to work with Lotus because of the large installed
base of Notes users, but Lucent is taking its own steps into the messaging
arena and may offer its own universal inbox. If you're a trend-watcher,
keep an eye on Lucent. Most observers think it's easier for companies to
make the jump from telephony to data than the other way around.
Assembly required For now, though, the Notes/Intuity/TOS universal inbox couldn't compete
with that of the two other solutions in the Comparison. The cost of the
bundle, for starters, was by far the highest -- more than two and a half
times that of the GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution. But if you already
use Intuity for voice mail, the price won't be nearly as high.
More importantly, this solution has far too many points of administration.
If you want to add, delete, or change a user profile, you'll have to do
it from the PBX, the NetWare log-in server, the Intuity database, the Notes
database, and the TOS database. (You can combine the TOS and Notes databases,
but Lotus says Notes' performance will benefit by keeping the databases
separate.) Unfortunately, the separate databases means adding users to
the TOS database one by one rather than by Notes group -- an agonizing
task.
This solution also requires the deepest immersion in the unfamiliar language
and logic of the telecommunications world, and it's a bracing plunge. You'll
be a bit more comfortable if you know The Santa Cruz Operation's Unix --
Lucent's Intuity runs atop it -- but the product uses its own command-line
syntax for administering users. Even if you master that language, we think
any big changes (adding modules or services, such as text-to-speech) will
require a VAR or experienced telecommunications staff.
To its credit, Intuity handles fax services well and can manage one extension
as both a fax and voice line, eliminating the need to maintain two direct
inward dial, or DID, numbers.
Voice on the go The Notes/Intuity/TOS solution is the only solution to offer text-to-speech
capability, another way for users to receive messages when they can't connect
to the LAN. When dialing in, you can choose to hear the author and subject
lines only or the entire body of a text message. When an e-mail message
has an attachment (such as a fax), Intuity notifies you of the attachment
and its file type. The text-to-speech feature also handled misspelled words
surprisingly well.
Taken as a whole, the client aspect of this solution fell short of the
GroupWise/FaxServe/CallWare solution. Like the Exchange/RightFax/CallXpress3
solution, for example, this solution does not offer visual cues to distinguish
e-mail, fax, and phone messages. On paper, this may seem a trivial point,
but when you're looking at an inbox with dozens of messages, you need instant,
on-the-fly management only your eyes can deliver. Thankfully, unlike Exchange,
Notes could display all types of messages in a single inbox window.
For the most part, we liked the Lotus Notes:Document Imaging (LN:DI) Pro
4.5 application, which is needed to view and edit faxes within Notes. Good
optical character recognition capabilities are built in, as well as standard
magnify, rotate, and annotate functions. Unfortunately, we couldn't get
the annotation feature to work due to a version conflict. TOS is certified
only for Notes 4.12c, but LN:DI Pro 4.5 is fully compatible only with Notes
4.5. Lotus says TOS will be certified for Notes 4.5 by the end of the first
quarter.
The client piece of Intuity's call-processing software is called Message
Manager 4.0 (not to be confused with the CallXpress3 client, Desktop Message
Manager), and similar to the call-processing pieces of the other two solutions,
Message Manager is a capable, full-featured tool for playing messages,
recording greetings, setting passcodes, and configuring notification options.
For our main log-in server, we used a Micron P133 with 32MB of RAM, a 2GB
Enhanced (EIDE) drive, and a 100Mbps Ethernet card running NetWare 4.11.
For each mail server (Exchange 4.0, GroupWise 5.0, or Notes 4.12c), we
used a 166-MHz Dell Pentium with 32MB of RAM, a 1GB EIDE hard drive, and
a 100Mbps Ethernet card. The GroupWise server ran over NetWare 4.11; the
Exchange and Notes servers ran over Windows NT Server 4.0. The RightFax,
FaxServe, and CallWare servers ran on a 166-MHz ALR Pentium with 32MB of
RAM over either NetWare 4.11 or Windows NT Server 4.0 (vendor's choice).
We had five Windows for Workgroups 3.11 clients and five Windows 95 clients.
Each of the five Windows 95 clients was a Micron P133 with 32MB of RAM,
a 2GB hard drive, a 3Com 3C509 network interface card (NIC), a 14-inch
VGA color monitor, a CD-ROM drive, a Sound Blaster card, and speakers.
Three of the Windows for Workgroups clients were Hewlett-Packard 486/33
Vectras; two were Gateway 486/33s. All five had 8MB of RAM, a 210MB hard
drive, 3Com's 3C509 NIC, and a 14-inch VGA color monitor. In addition to
Windows for Workgroups 3.11, the clients ran DOS 6.22 and NetWare Client
32, Version 2.0.
The four servers were located on a 100Mbps segment of a switched 10/100
Bay Networks Ethernet hub. We used two Hewlett-Packard 10Base-T hubs for
the 10 clients, five per hub.
Implementation In this category, we scored our experience of the installation process,
as well as how it was performed by the vendor-appointed installers. For
a score of excellent, implementation had to be flawless, with installation
tutorials or wizards to help. We expected the documentation to have fully
prepared us for the task at hand. We wanted the option to perform client
installations in groups, not just one at a time. We also looked for easy
PBX integration. For a score of satisfactory, we expected the install to
have only minimal problems and not require any special hardware. We expected
the documentation to keep us on track and for fax and voice cards to install
and work as promised.
Administration Because it can be very difficult for IS personnel without telecommunications
background to understand this technology, we expected a good solution to
make the administrator's job as unintimidating as possible. For a score
of satisfactory, we wanted a solution that provided tools to create, edit,
and delete clients. For a score of good, we wanted to be able to manage
clients with the mail server's administrative tools, to reduce server utilization.
A score of very good required a capability for remote and/or distributed
administration. A score of excellent required all of the above, as well
as strong reporting and troubleshooting features and other intangibles
that made a solution first-class.
Client aspect For this category, we evaluated the overall experience of each solution's
universal inboxes, including response time. For the voice-messaging portions,
we looked at how easy it was to configure mailboxes, greetings, and passwords.
We also looked for pager-notification and/or wake-up options. For the fax
portions, we looked for billing-code, print-to-fax, and signature-file
options. A score of excellent required that all of a solution's parts be
the best of the Comparison. For a very good, the package had to offer wake-up
and pager-notification options and customizable fax cover sheets, as well
as be extremely easy to navigate. For a good, the solution had to provide
the options necessary to successfully complete all required tasks, with
reasonable response time. For a Satisfactory, we wanted the capability
to output voice mail to a sound card or a telephone handset, and reasonable
accessibility of all messages from the mail client.
Documentation and support policies We used InfoWorld's standard measuring suite to rate documentation and
support policies. When support was only offered through resellers, we downgraded
a solution's score. We also incorporated the support policies of selected
resellers into the overall scores.
Price We looked at price in relative, rather than absolute, terms. We based our
price scores on vendor-supplied data to equip a 450-client network with
these universal inbox capabilities.
Contributors:
Introduction by Chip Brookshaw - Associate Editor Test plan by Dan Seoane - Technology Analyst Reviewed by Ana Orubeondo and Dan Seoane - Technology Analyst Edited by Chip Brookshaw Additional editing by Julie Dunn - Associate Editor
