MessageMachines, a Boston-based company officially entering the industry this week, intends to help organize the clutter that has been created by an overwhelming number of advanced messaging devices and constantly progressing technologies. MessageMachines’ platforms offer the user more control over where, when and how messages are received.
MessageMachines’ two application servers, which are specifically tailored for its customers, aim to fulfill the company’s mission statement: “Any message. Anytime. Anywhere.” However, MessageMachines does not consider itself a participant in the recent unified messaging trend. Instead, the company believes it takes that technology a step further, offering cross-device, instant notification and tracking capabilities.
With the company’s Enterprise Server, each user sets up a profile to direct all messages received, whether by fax, e-mail, wireline phone, or cellular phone, to one specified location. In the profile, users set up and name various channels based on the devices they use and their lifestyles. For example, a CEO working from home for the day can log onto the MessageMachines site and activate the channel that he or she has titled “home.” That will ensure the user will be notified of messages originally intended for the office fax machine, office phone and office e-mail on the home phone and PC.
MessageMachines also offers a Carrier Server which is intended for telecom service providers, system integrators, unified messaging and softswitch vendors. The server allows the carriers to offer enhanced services like message routing, alerts and notification to their customers.
MessageMachines’ products are valuable because they allow both enterprises and service providers to add offerings to applications that already exist, Christopher Herot, MessageMachine’s chief executive officer and chairman, explained. “If you make it too complicated, nobody really gets very far,” said Herot. So MessageMachines has kept it simple, and already has several partnerships in place.
For example, Spanlink Communications Inc., a provider of unified communications integration services and products is now considered a reseller of the MessageMachines platform because it leverages a MessageMachines platform within its own communications solutions. The companies also said they plan to cooperate in marketing and sales activities and integrate and develop new solutions for Internet telephony, cross-device messaging and unified communications based on Cisco’s uOne.
AvantGo Inc., which provides mobile infrastructure software and services, has joined MessageMachines to deliver notification and next-generation mobile messaging technology to Fortune 1000 enterprises. And MessageMachines most recently announced a partnership with Mirapoint Inc., a provider of Internet messaging infrastructure products, to upgrade the messaging and notification capabilities of Mirapoint’s product line.
“Until now, the industry lacked a uniform way to transform messages and send alerts and notifications across different formats and devices,” Herot concluded, emphasizing his company’s uniqueness. “Unlike current unified communications solutions, MessageMachines not only collects all messages in a single place, but delivers them to wherever the end user may be.”
