acmodation.com

LONDON -- Avaya's Unified Messenger 4.0 for Microsoft Exchange 2000 software is being applied by Microsoft itself across its entire employee-base. Unified messaging software allows a user to access and manage all of their messaging needs through a single inbox for user to access and manage all their voice, fax and email messages.

Avaya's package enables users to access their messages with a mobile, a fixed-line phone, or any Internet connection, and also features more advanced functions such as "find-me" and "call-me" notifications, which allow messaging schedules with different phone numbers - for instance a home phone or mobile - to be set up, as well as receiving automatic calls when a particular caller and/or message gets in contact.

Unified messaging allegedly saves time and annoyance by centralising the various types of communications that are received by businesses, and are typically used by call centres and other support units - the hope from the consumer side of things being that support staff might actually get in touch with you more quickly (if at all), and from the corporate side of things that the better-organised employee would have more time to do so.

So far, over 8,000 employees at the Microsoft HQ are using Avaya's Unified Messenger, and more workers at different sites will be enabled over the next 12 months. Since the company has plans to roll out the Messenger to all staff, Microsoft employees in the UK will hopefully be easier to get hold of.