The underlying technology to handle text messages, faxes, voice, email and instant messages as objects in a single mailbox and to convert these messages into alternative formats to facilitate communication on the move has been around since the beginning of the decade. But it is only now, with recent advances in network and communication technology, that unified messaging is set to enter the mainstream.

According to analyst group Forrester Research, just 15% of US and 14% of European businesses have invested in unified messaging technologies. But that is likely to change fast as nearly a third of businesses are now investigating the benefits of such integrated communications.

Their interest underscores the perception that current messaging systems are fragmented and therefore costly and inefficient to run; they also typically require multiple devices, interfaces and communications networks. By consolidating them, organisations can not only simplify the user's message flow, it can speed up the time taken to deal with messages, especially important when they are part of a business process such as stockbroking or retail banking.

One of the key enablers for the new wave of unified environments is the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). It manages applications that exploit the concept of 'presence'. Just as in instant messaging when users know which of their 'buddies' are online, SIP builds an awareness so it can track users and deliver different forms of messages on their different devices and across different types of network.

The result will ultimately be a seamless communications channel that enables users to interact in a manner that suits their needs and situation at any given time - switching between voice, web, video conferencing, text messaging, email, instant messaging and further communications mechanisms as they emerge.

The current proliferation of mobile devices - with BlackBerry as the stand-out example - may be a good pointer of the growing demand for ubiquitous corporate messaging tools. But such developments may also be fragmenting the development of unified corporate communications, warns Robert Mahowald, an analyst with IT industry advisor IDC, as executives and other employees introduce devices to the organisation's business processes that are not supported by the IT department. "Users are gobbling up PDAs, multifunction cell phones, and email devices such as BlackBerrys as a way to make themselves more mobile, but these devices often aren't linked to corporate email or voicemail systems."

The real benefit of unified messaging will be the impact it has on business processes, says Andy Mulholland, global CTO of IT services giant Capgemini. Businesses have the opportunity to use unified messaging systems to provide a 'service-oriented infrastructure', he explains.

"Currently businesses are organised around functional departments, with applications built around that; messaging provides a horizontal layer round the bottom of that. The real strength of messaging is that it allows businesses to improve their end-to-end capabilities," he adds.

One company quick to spot the opportunities for merging communication services is Google. In August, it unveiled plans for Google Talk that included adding voice-over-IP to a standard instant messaging service. This will bring unified communication to a much wider audience, says Mark Main, analyst with Ovum.

	Enterprise messaging equipment, Western Europe Source: Gartner