The Reality of Global Connectivity
Over the last decade millions of copies
of software packages for word processing and e-mail have
been sold, installed, replaced, upgraded and generally become
an indispensable part of the business infrastructure in the vast
majority of organisations, whether large or small, IT pioneer
or mainstream user, private or public, operating nationally or
internationally. Connectivity, which was initially limited to
a single organisation or indeed to a single site or department
within an organisation, now includes employees working away from
the office and external organisations too. Notebook PCs come with
a battery of communications features that overcome the obstacles
to working remotely with e-mail, and "road warriors"
with notebooks and mobile phones gain immediate access from client
site, car and airport to their office e-mail system and other
service providers' networks.
The Pattern of Change
This explosion in connectivity and the
universal availability of standardised software for the office
have led to a vast increase in the volume of data transmitted.
Equally significant, however, is the change in the profile of
this data traffic. Most users are no longer content just to send
plain text by e-mail, but wish to append multiple documents
and/or files of any type, length and structure.
More and more users have a need to communicate
with persons outside their own organisation as well. With electronic
data interchange (EDI) and electronic commerce, communication
occurs between enterprises by definition. The message-oriented
communications profile no longer comprises only internal e-mail
and stand-alone external fax, but now often includes the integrated
internal and external transfer of complex messages and multimedia
objects. The increasing importance of workflow management is strongly
supporting this trend.
Messaging Solves Business Problems
To satisfy these ever more demanding
communication and messaging requirements effectively, many organisations
need to enhance their IT infrastructure in a major way. A growing
number of IT managers have discovered that this includes replacing
their current e-mail application if this only supports interpersonal
e-mail, or - if sufficient investment funds are unavailable
for a replacement - installing additional software which provides
the extra messaging functionality needed. These managers are introducing
a modern messaging infrastructure that delivers a full spectrum
of features providing the flexibility and functionality needed
to satisfy employees', customers' and partners' expectations in
the future.
Global messaging is no longer an exotic
option chosen only by leading-edge IT organisations. It has come
of age and now represents the mainstream. At NET-TEL we recognised
at an early date that many organisations would need advanced-function
messaging and developed Route400 products
to solve the very real problems faced.
Overcoming Barriers
Because the need to communicate between
enterprises and between different divisions of large organisations
is growing quickly, difficulties naturally arise if the e-mail
systems are not compatible. There are two approaches to this problem:
either a gateway is installed to convert formats and protocols
from each system's to the other's, or all systems use a commonly
accepted standard as the basis of interconnection. Installing,
administering and supporting multiple gateways costs unnecessary
time and money. Using a standardised approach adds value.
Benefits of Standards
The advantages of using a standardised
approach are great: each proprietary system needs to perform only
one type of conversion, a standard does not favour the ideas of
any particular supplier or manufacturer as all have an equal opportunity
to influence the standard, and standards, especially when internationally
adopted and accepted, are stable and not subject to sudden change.
This last point does not inhibit improvements; it does ensure,
though, that upwards compatibility is always guaranteed. The X.400
standard has been steadily enhanced from its initial version in
1984 and has now achieved universal acceptance. No company has
more experience with X.400 than NET-TEL. Organisations selecting
us as their supplier of messaging software products will benefit
from this unrivalled experience and achieve significant productivity
increases.
Other NET-TEL white papers:
Meeting the Information Challenge
Why Route400 and Route500?
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