Raul Castanon's blog on Channel Marketing, Technology, Telecommunications, Social Networking

Entries in Ericsson (3)

Thursday

Apr162009

Do you know your voice mail’s full?

Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 10:28AM

A recent article published by the New York Times (Jill Colvin, "You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care?", April 1st, 2009) announced the demise of Voice Mail and the rise of new technology and services such as Google Voice's Voice to Text and the iPhone's Visual Voice Mail.
According to the article, most people don't bother to listen to their voice mail messages and that the technology is obsolete.
Interesting article but Colvin's article misses the point: most of the new services she presents as examples of technology that is replacing voice mail are actually an evolution of voice mail technology.
Voice to Text, for example, which is included in Google Voice, is a voice mail message delivery mechanism that allows text transcription of voice mail messages. This means that you have to have a voice mail message to begin with. It is new technology that provides a better user interface to recover voice mail messages, precisely what Colvin points out is missing from voice mail.
Other examples in the article include caller id, which lets subscribers know who called them without having to listen to their voice mail messages. Most people are familiar with this service as provided by their mobile phones, but the voice mail platform provides an enhanced version of this service that covers additional scenarios that the device cannot: out of coverage, phone turned off, no voice mail deposit. The service is missed call alert and sits on top of the voice mail platform. Stand alone platforms are also available but they are integrated to the voice mail service.
Finally, visual voice mail is yet another service that sits on top of voice mail. Visual voice mail delivers voice mail messages to the handset through a mobile application that provides an inbox / e mail like user interface that allows the user to browse through the messages and select the message they want to hear.
The interesting question -and Colvin does address this- is how will mobile operators react to these new technologies? Mobile operators have introduced some of these new technologies including visual voice mail and voice to text but the fact is they have been slow to incorporate them.
Companies such as Comverse, Ericsson and Unisys have had services such as Visual Voice Mail, Voice to Text and Voice Mail to MMS for years but few operators showed serious interest until the iPhone was launched.
Voice Mail may be a mature technology but new technologies are breathing new life into this service that has been for many years the biggest VAS revenue generator for operators. Voice Mail has the potential to continue generating revenue for operators as it continues to evolve and adapt to new technologies: MMS delivery, e mail delivery, visual voice mail, converged messaging, web access, voice to text, missed call notification ... this and other variations can offer solutions for specific call scenarios and improved user interface that meet subscribers' needs.
We will continue to discuss and write about these options as well as the opportunities they represent for operators.

Raul |

Google Voice: "One of the big holes right now is in the management of voice communications"

Monday, March 16, 2009 at 9:00AM

Pinky: Gee, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world!

Last week Google announced that GrandCentral, acquired by Google in 2007, is now Google Voice, with new features including voicemail to text and archive and search of SMS text messages.

Analysts and bloggers are divided on how this will impact voice revenues from local and international calls, but the ability to offer free Internet calls will surely be seen as a threat. When Nokia announced last month that Skype came preloaded on the N97, it incurred the displeasure of mobile operators. According to Mobiletoday.co.uk, UK operators Orange and O2 may end up refusing to stock the N97 unless Nokia eliminated the application.

The incursion of Skype and Google into telecommunications adds to the mounting pressure mobile operators are facing from new players. Last year, when Apple announced it was opening up its platform to developers, they redefined the power balance in the industry; technology vendors and developers now have access to the mobile market without having to go through an operator. The result? Apple's AppStore is expected to become a $1 billion business by the end of 2009 and other major players have announced their own App Store including RIM, Nokia, Microsoft and Palm.

Vincent Paquet, a co-founder of GrandCentral who is now running Google Voice, stated that "Google is all about helping you manage your information and one of the big holes right now is in the management of voice communications".

Paquet's statement is relevant because he highlights yet another missed opportunity by mobile operators. A recent report from Frost & Sullivan placed the spotlight on Unified Messaging (UM), a technology that facilitates anywhere and anytime access to non-real-time messaging. According to Frost & Sullivan, UM contributed approximately 51 percent of the total enterprise voice and UM market revenues, a market that earned revenues of $708.1 million in 2008 (Cellular News, Feb 26 2009). Mobile operators, however, have not showed much enthusiasm in this service. Technology vendors including Comverse, Ericsson and Unisys introduced this service several years ago and it has evolved to reflect new developments such as voice mail transfer to e mail, web access and single access to voice, fax and e mail messages. Operators, however, have stayed with basic voice mail services, with functions that have not changed since they were first introduced almost twenty years.

The mobile market continues to evolve at a rapid pace and there are many new and exciting opportunities waiting to happen: converged messaging, mobile advertising and mobile/Internet convergence to name a few.

Mobile operators can still leverage their position in the market, but with new players moving in and filling the "big holes" in voice and data, they will have to redefine their business models and partner with the new players; at this stage of the game, this might be their only option to take advantage of new opportunities and more importantly, respond to threats in a new business environment where they no longer have the last word.

Raul |

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