Verizon Discovers Unified Messaging
from the well,-look-at-that dept
Apparently, the telcos are being forced to innovate again, and they're doing so by looking back at what people have talked about for ages. The idea of "unified messaging" or "unified communications" isn't particularly new, so it's not entirely clear why Wired News seems to think it's absolutely amazing that Verizon has just figured out how to offer such services. A lot of the big telcos have been slow to offer these kinds of features, even if smaller, nimbler companies (especially in the VoIP space) have been messing around with them for years. In this case, Verizon is giving some users the ability to manage voicemails, emails and text messages via their computer or their phone, including the ability to transfer calls to the most appropriate phone based on time of day or to automatically transfer certain calls to voicemail. These are all things many VoIP providers have been offering for a while, so if anything, this is just Verizon trying to catch up.
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