Avaya messaging improves road safety

Avaya Modular Messaging 4.0 includes the Avaya one-X Speech interface to a personal assistant, providing hands-free access to calling and conferencing capabilities, voice, e-mail and fax messaging, enterprise directories and databases, calendars, contacts and task lists - from any telephone, says CNN Money.

Avaya one-X Speech helps improve responsiveness and safety for employees on the road by eliminating the need to read messages or to text-while-driving.

"Our goal is to ensure cost-effective solutions where companies and employees benefit from improved collaboration, responsiveness and simplified access to the wide range of communications used today," says Mary Dunlop, VP, Unified Communications Product Management, Avaya.

Consumer electronics manufacturer, VTech Communications, has launched a cordless phone featuring full instant messaging capability, complete with emoticons, reports Teleclick.ca.

VTech's DECT-based IS6110 telephone boasts a built-in qwerty keyboard, and works with MSN/Windows Live Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, as soon as its base station is connected via USB to a broadband-equipped PC.

"With instant messaging becoming part of the fabric of everyday communication - particularly for young adults - we sought to deliver a product that would make it even more accessible to more consumers," commented VTech's senior VP of product management, Matt Ramage.

SMSing and mobile e-mail may well be overtaken by mobile instant messaging (MIM), according to a TNS Global Telecoms Insight survey of 17 000 consumers across 30 countries, states Marketing VOX News.

Globally, 11 out of 100 messages sent by mobile devices or fixed PC are instant messages, the survey found, and 8% of all mobile users use MIM.

"Once a mobile phone user has access to the Internet from their handset, the cost of instant messaging is next to nothing, as the only cost is a very small data transfer fee," said Matthew Froggatt, MD of Global Technology for TNS.