What we need isn't a universal mailbox, just a universal way to control our communications.

Let's travel back in time to 10 years ago. Perhaps you recall the much-hyped "find me/follow me" service. Remember when every carrier was touting its ability to make subscribers available anywhere by dialing a single number? They were assuming that people wanted to be reachable no matter what (which was a mistake, but that's beside the point). The calling party would dial the number, and it would begin ringing first at the home, then at the business phone, then at the mobile phone, eventually winding up at the receiving party's voice mail. But it wasn't good for either party. Attempts to program the service to ring through properly weren't terribly easy in the initial setup, and making any additional changes to accommodate a new number or re-route calls were exercises in futility for all but the most patient users.

Find me/follow me survived of course, because there were those few people who could make it work, but it certainly didn't become popular. Just how many people do you know who use it now? Probably not many. Every carrier offered it, and every carrier failed to sell it successfully. But find me/follow me is getting new life as the result of universal user interface (UUI) technologies, and being reachable (or choosing not to be reachable) anywhere is just the beginning.

With 20/20 hindsight, carriers now see why the find me/follow me service was unsuccessful at gaining more converts. As tech savvy as people are/were, there is still a percentage of the population - and 10 years ago that percentage was significant - that has a hard time understanding and working with new technology.

But there is good news for technology companies - especially those that develop wireless communications products. Beginning with Generation X, and even more prominent in Generation Y, people are becoming more comfortable with technology. The younger generations are bent on customization and gadgetry, and the carriers want to give it to them. Take, for example, the ringtone phenomenon. Last year, the ringtone business was a $1.2 billion industry.

People are, and probably always will be, interested in differentiating themselves. The old find me/follow me services, as well as virtually all of a user's services, weren't that customizable. Any changes required going through hated interactive voice response (IVR) prompts or talking to a customer service representative. Today, users can customize and provision services via the Web through a UUI. That UUI is accessible using a desktop computer, wireless phones, or PDAs - basically any device that connects to the Internet.

The Soon-to-Be-Ubiquitous UUI
Every carrier in America is experimenting with the UUI. The trend is moving toward not just a graphical interface, but also an audio interface that lets the user access all the features on the network through the Java-based drag-and-drop method or speech-recognition capabilities. This enables subscribers to visually (and sometimes verbally) control their services, deciding where a call should ring depending on the time of day, or directing certain voice-mail messages to be sent to e-mail - where they can be retrieved by playing them as a .wav file.

What does all of this mean for the concept of unified messaging (UM)? In its initial stages, UM wasn't much more successful than find me/follow me services. While makers touted the ease of a single mailbox for all messages, the general public didn't take to the idea. Research has shown that people tend to use each of their mail sources discreetly and exclusively. Basically, people don't want to mix their home and business voice mail, and they want to separate voice mail from e-mail. Yet, while users want to maintain separate mailboxes, they want to be able to control them from a single access point - the UUI.

The benefits of this control are evident. Let's say Dave is waiting on an important business call, but he has tickets to the movies and has to leave his office right at 5 p.m. Before leaving work, he can easily log on to his personalized UUI site and direct his business phone to ring his wireless phone so he can catch the call on his way home to change clothes. Dave doesn't have to give out three numbers where he can be reached, and he doesn't have to get an entirely new number as a single point of contact. He can be reached when he wants to be, and he can provision his service intelligently and easily.

If the story stopped there, it wouldn't be worth telling, but there are more impressive services made possible by the improved technology. One such service uses screen pops on the PC to provide the user with extensive call control. With this service, the user could be sitting at a computer and receive a screen pop telling him that a call is coming in and who is placing the call. He can answer that call with a VoIP phone, forward the call to his business phone or home phone voice mail, send the call to his mobile phone to answer directly, or terminate the call. If it's his mother-in-law, he can even forward the call to his wife's mobile phone. For the business user, this level of call management is ideal. It's like a CallerID/find me/follow me hybrid - on steroids.

The Fabled Win-Win Service
Ultimately, a UUI is a win-win service offering for the carrier and subscriber alike. For the carrier, it increases customer loyalty as subscribers get used to the interface. A subscriber that spends time learning how to use his or her interface and customizing it with specially provisioned services isn't likely to go looking for a new provider. People are going to choose the path of least resistance, and programming a new interface doesn't follow the least-resistance model.

Increased usage of the network means more billable minutes for carriers, and enabling the customers to set up and provision their own services dramatically reduces customer service costs for the companies. Subscribers benefit from increased ease of use and greater customization capabilities.

As an example of the increased convenience, witness Vonage. With wireline services, if a customer wants to have a second phone line, it can take up to two weeks to have the new line installed in the home. With Vonage's VoIP service, the subscriber can go online and easily point and click his or her way to a second line that becomes active immediately. Later, that second line can be turned off just as easily.

With these services already being offered, it's just a matter of getting the word out. Using the Web isn't something that has to be taught any more. Most of the people who would use communications services on a regular basis are already avid Web users.

Realistically, the UUI will become the de facto standard for how people control their phone network, but what is enabling the carriers to offer this level of provisioning ease to subscribers? If users are adding and subtracting services at will, the network has to be flexible.

Enter the Modular Architecture
Around the time when the find me/follow me service was starting to make headlines, carriers had all of their applications in a single, self-contained mystery box (a.k.a. application server). Vendors created and filled the application server with voice mail, pre- and post-paid card services, conferencing, and a few other goodies. The vendors then handed the box to the carriers and told them that if it ever broke or started acting up, the carriers could call them, and they'd come out and take care of it.

As the carriers grew in size and added new applications over the years, they couldn't get into the box to add those applications. This created inefficiencies because it wasn't possible to share subscriber data between the new application and the existing applications housed within the box. So, every time a new application was added to the network, a carrier had to go to great lengths to connect the new application to the subscriber data.

Fast-forward to the present. Network infrastructures and mystery boxes are being end-of-lifed, and carriers, whether they are ready or not, have to replace network infrastructures, components, and applications. The available technology is much better now, but offering the status quo to users won't be enough. Because customization and the UUI are becoming so important, the all-in-one mystery box no longer fills the bill.

Instead, the use of the modular, standards-based application server is coming into vogue. With this type of server, carriers are free to purchase whatever off-the-shelf, best-of-breed, flexible, end-to-end, value-added, turnkey solution applications they want. The applications are all tied to each other and to the subscriber data so that data can be shared across the applications - saving time, conserving space/energy, and reducing operational expenditures. Because the server has modular architecture, the carrier can add, subtract, and modify applications as necessary, exerting more control and quickly changing the applications to meet the needs of important demographics like the mobile business user and the under 25 user.

The wire-line market is losing both of those demographic groups to the wireless market. The mobile business user is interested in integration services, which include UM. The mobile business user wants features like call control, e-mail, faxes, and network integration. The under-25 user wants to get the new Outkast song as his or her ringtone the minute it's available. The desired features may be different, but both demographic groups want to be able to manage and customize their features from the UUI.

As the UUI grows in popularity, expect to see a lot of carriers making the shift to the modular application server in the months to come. With the level of freedom it offers, the modular application server is good for carriers, server vendors, application vendors, and, ultimately, subscribers.