An approach for a 4th generation messaging system

A variety of concepts for service integration and corresponding service platforms emerged in the last two years. On the one hand, they aim for the interworking and integration of classical telecommunication and data communication services, such as telephony, voicemail, fax, e-mail, paging, etc. On the other hand they focus on universal service access from a variety of end user systems, including both fixed and mobile terminals. One form of these concepts are Unified Messaging Systems, which are proposed to enhance the control over reachability in telecommunications. This paper presents the evolution of messaging system and an outlook of future developments in the area of communication and information services. Based on this analysis it shows the drawbacks of the current understanding of Unified Messaging. The second part of the paper proposes a system architecture from the technical perspective to overcome the examined disadvantages.