Internet Fax Glossary: History of corporate Voicemail

There is often some discussion about who invented voicemail. Invention of a device is normally defined as who first created a viable design for a product and reduced it to practice, not who first had the seed of an idea (since that is impossible to prove). Beyond invention is the concept of who brought the product to the world most effectively, or, in other words, who was the first to make it commercially viable and widely used. In those terms, voicemail was first invented by IBM (Dr. Steven J. Boies in 1975) and was broadly commercialized by Octel Communications (founded in 1982 by Bob Cohn and Peter Olson). ROLM Corporation (founded in 1969 by Gene Richeson, Ken Oshman, Walter Loewenstern and Robert Maxfield and later owned by IBM before IBM sold it to Siemens) was the first PBX manufacturer to offer integrated voicemail with its PhoneMail system, and also played a major role commercializing voicemail.
IBM’s product, initially called the SFS (Speech Filing System) was developed as an intensive research project at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. It was meant to mimic the concept of email, but using the telephone as the input device and the human voice as the medium for the message. Work on the system began in 1973 and the first operational prototype was made available to users in 1975. Four people could use it at once. From 1975-1981, about 750 IBM executives, mainly in the U.S., used various SFS prototypes in their daily work. Those prototypes ran on an IBM System /7 computer attached to an IBM VM370 for additional storage. The prototype was converted to run on a Series /1 computer in 1978. In September, 1981, IBM announced this product as the “Audio Distribution System” (ADS) with the first customer installation being February, 1982. It was marketed directly by IBM and for a short while by AT&T. IBM’s ADS required special attention as a computer (special room, special power, air conditioning, etc.) ADS was richly featured for voice messaging, the result of IBM’s enormous research in human factors and observing SFS in real operational use. However, ADS had major limitations which resulted in its failure as a commercial product: for example, it was physically large, expensive, limited to 1,000 users, had no telephone answering mode (could not answer outside calls), and had to be taken out of service to make administrative changes to the user data base (called “MAC”, for “moves, adds and changes”).
Another company, Delphi Communications of California, deserves some partial credit for invention of voicemail. Under the leadership of Jay Stoffer, Delphi developed a proprietary system (called Delta 1) that picked up incoming calls directly from the telephone company. Stoffer presented the Delphi concept publicly to the association of Telephone Answering Services around 1973 and the prototype system was launched in San Francisco in 1976 by a Delphi company called VoiceBank. Delphi developed Delta 1 as a purely service-oriented voice messaging system to answer subscriber telephones for businesses and professionals. Delta 1 required human intervention for message deposit. While three machines were built, only one machine was put into operational service. The completely automated voice messaging system (Delta 2) was developed for initial operational use in Los Angeles in 1981. Apparently Delta 2 was built, installed and operational for a short while, but unfortunately Delphi’s major early investor, Exxon Enterprises, abruptly shut down Delphi in July, 1982. Nothing further was done with Delphi’s technology. A patent was applied for and issued for Delphi’s Automated Telephone Voice Service System. The patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,625,081, was issued after Delphi’s closure, but Delphi’s assets (and the patent) were transferred to another Exxon company, Gilbarco, which made equipment for gas pumps at filling stations. Gilbarco is now owned by GEC in the United Kingdom.
In 1979, five years after IBM’s SFS (ADS) system and three years after Delphi’s Delta 1 system were first operational, a company was founded in Texas by Gordon Matthews called ECS Communications (the name was later changed to VMX). According to Jay Stoffer, founder of Delphi Communications, Gordon Matthews learned about Delphi’s voicemail prior to his founding VMX. Regardless of how he was inspired, Matthews eventually founded VMX which developed a 3,000-user voice messaging system called the VMX/64. VMX was arguably the first company to offer voicemail for sale commercially for corporate use. Matthews was able to sell his system to several notable large corporations, such as 3M, Kodak, American Express, Intel, Hoffman La Roche, Corning Glass, Arco, Shell Canada and Westinghouse. This impressive list of early adopters started the ball rolling on corporate voicemail. While some claim that VMX and Gordon Matthews invented voicemail, this claim is not true. The first inventor of record was Stephen Boies of IBM years before VMX was founded.
While VMX began with a good start, it failed at developing the market, and the company was not a commercial success. It took many years before its products could answer outside calls (and then only under certain circumstances), they were physically enormous, expensive, light on important user features and had serious reliability issues. In addition, the user interface was cumbersome, requiring the users to remember non-intuitive multi-digit Touch-tone commands. Matthews, a prolific entrepreneur and patenter, applied for and was granted a patent on voicemail (patent number 4,371,752) which issued in February, 1983. The patent was promoted as the pioneering patent for voicemail.
Shortly after the development of the first voicemail systems, several companies sprang up to develop their own systems including Wang Computers, ROLM, Opcom, Octel, Centigram, Genesis, and many others. Wang Computers, under the leadership of Dr. Larry Bergeron, developed a voicemail system modeled after the IBM system. Wang called its system the DVX. It too could not answer outside calls but was smaller and less expensive than the IBM system.
Matthews was quite astute at the way he used his patent. Matthews tried to assert his patent with IBM, AT&T and then Wang, but all three companies reportedly would have been able to invalidate the Matthews patent because of prior art. Matthews cleverly achieved a settlement where the patent was let stand, not challenged in court and IBM, Wang and AT&T (in separate settlements) received royalty-free licenses to all VMX patents. Wang, the last of the majors to get such a license, essentially paid $20,000 and cross licensed a few patent applications (not issued patents). IBM and AT&T also cross-licensed a number of patents to VMX, most of which were obsolete or outdated. VMX could claim that several major companies licensed the patent (even though they paid almost nothing to VMX for the rights), but that part wasn’t disclosed. The patent was never challenged in court and VMX then continued to assert (incorrectly) that it had invented voicemail and that Matthews was the father of voicemail. Following the settlement with Wang, VMX settled with Octel. In exchange for a small payment and Octel’s agreeing not to litigate any VMX patent, Octel received a paid-up, royalty-free license on all existing and future VMX patents.
ROLM (one of the first makers of digital PBX’s) was the first company to offer integrated voicemail through its product called PhoneMail, which name is a registered trademark. PhoneMail offered impressive recording quality of its digitized messages. ROLM’s digital PBX (called a CBX, for Computerized Branch eXchange) was the first PBX to provide signaling to indicate which extension was being forwarded to a voicemail system (the first PBX to do so). However, the signaling was proprietary and intended only for use by its voicemail product, PhoneMail. ROLM’s CBX also provided signaling to enable PhoneMail to illuminate a message waiting light on ROLM’s electronic phones and later standard phones equipped with message waiting lights (also a studder dialtone is used with analog and digital phones). PhoneMail worked with most but not all models of ROLM’s CBXs, would work with some other brands of PBXs such as Nortel's Option Meridian (with adaptors and loss of some features), and was heavily promoted by ROLM. PhoneMail is still a commercial success. Siemens still offers PhoneMail in various configurations/sizes (including a micro-sized version) and its unified messaging successor, Xpressions 470; along with the same pleasing female voice most ROLM techs have nicknamed, Silicon Sally.
Opcom, a company started by David Ladd, was another maker of voicemail which also pioneered and patented the feature of automated attendant (U.S. Patent numbers 4,747,124 and 4,783,796 both of which issued in 1988). Opcom developed a voicemail system primarily marketed to smaller enterprises. Automated attendant enables callers to direct calls by pressing single digit keys. For example, “If you are making domestic reservations, press ‘1’; for international reservations, press ‘2’; for frequent flier information, press ‘3’, etc.” Automated attendant is not technically voicemail, but all the features to enable automated attendant are already part of a voicemail system so it is a natural feature to add to it. Opcom was an innovative company and also pioneered the concept of Unified Messaging (to be discussed later in this article). Opcom’s voicemail product was a commercial success with smaller companies and some large ones. Around 1991, VMX was on the verge of bankruptcy and was acquired by Opcom. Since Opcom was private and VMX was public, the transaction was done as a reverse merger and the surviving company was called VMX. Little of the original VMX Company was retained. Within a few years, VMX was acquired by Octel and David Ladd became Octel’s Chief Technology Officer.
Octel Communications Corporation was founded in Silicon Valley in 1982 by Bob Cohn and Peter Olson. Octel’s voicemail system (developed during the period from 1982-1984 and first sold in 1984), became the clear market leader fairly quickly. While Octel benefited from the work and experiments of others, it was the first stand-alone voicemail company to build a strong business and strategy to win at this important market. In addition, Octel innovated substantially new technology which contributed heavily to its success. Octel’s differentiated hardware and software architecture enabled its systems to be physically smaller, faster, more reliable, and much less costly to build than any other vendor. These features, many of which were patented, gave Octel market leadership:
- User-friendly user-interface (other systems were not intuitive and had no help prompts).
- Error-free Touch-tone detection (other systems falsely detected a Touch- tone out of human voice, or didn’t detect Touch-tones when users pressed the buttons).
- Scrambled messages so no one could hear anyone else’s messages (other systems could accidentally get other people’s messages if the system failed at the right time).
- Telephone answering, voice messaging and automated attendant.
- Moves, adds and changes could be done while the system was running.
- Large amounts of message storage.
- Physically small size (about the size of a 2-drawer filing cabinet, compared to ROLM’s original PhoneMail being about 5' × 5' × 5' and VMX’s system filling a computer room). No requirement for special environment.
- Locatable anywhere. Octel systems could be located in any office environment and they were not susceptible to electrical shocks (often common on carpeted floors in offices, especially during winter).
- High reliability (being the first voicemail system to achieve up-time of 99.9% with its first system).
- Compatible with virtually all brands of PBX (voicemail offered by PBX vendors could only work with that vendor’s PBX system).
- Telephone answering with all PBXs, even those which had no method of providing caller ID.
- Message notification (phoning subscribers at various locations pre-programmed by the subscriber, when messages were received).
- Range of capacities. Small, medium, large and extra large capacity systems that addressed the needs of major companies (For example, Octel’s systems had 50% greater port capacity than VMX’s largest system). Small systems went in branch offices, medium systems went in district offices, large systems went in regional offices, and extra large systems could handle large corporate headquarters with over 10,000 people.
- Networking between voicemail systems so companies could have their voicemail systems operate as one large virtual network.
Octel’s strategy addressed needs of major accounts which other vendors did not until much later: advanced training, customer service, sales and market education. Octel’s system could identify the extension number of calls being forwarded to it and light message-waiting lights on most PBXs. This was possible because Octel’s engineers reverse engineered the major brands of PBX (legally) and often figured out ways to communicate with the PBX in ways the PBX manufacturer had not. Eventually most makers of PBX chose to work cooperatively with Octel. Octel integrated with almost 100 brands of PBX worldwide. As a result of Octel’s worldwide leadership, its user interface (which was done in more than 75 languages and dialects) became the most widely known in the world.
Toward the late 1990s, Octel introduced the concept of Visual Mailbox and Unified Messaging. Visual Mailbox enabled users to manage their voice mailboxes through their PCs, although the messages were still stored on the Octel system. Unified Messaging integrated voicemail into Microsoft Exchange, the corporate email system made by Microsoft. Unified Messaging had actually been invented by Henry Hyde-Thompson at VMX (Opcom) prior to VMX being acquired by Octel, but the product was finished and launched under the Octel brand. The patent for Unified Messaging was received in September, 1996 (Patent number 5,557,659).
Unified Messaging: With Unified Messaging, users could access voice and email messages using either the graphical user interface (GUI) on their PC, or using the telephone user interface (TUI) with any telephone in the world. On the PC, users could see voicemails and emails mixed together in their email inbox. Voice mails had a little telephone icon next to them and emails had a little envelope icon next to them (see figure below). For voicemail, they’d see the “header information” (sender, date sent, size, and subject). Users could double-click a voicemail from their email inbox and hear the message through their PC or a phone next to their desk. Using any phone in the world, users could listen to voice messages like they normally did, plus have emails read to them (in synthesized voice). Voice messages could be sent using email or telephone addressing schemes, and the data networking infrastructure was used to send messages between locations rather than the public switched telephone network. Unified Messaging was not a commercial success at the time because in the late 1990s email did not enjoy a huge market share, email servers were not very reliable, internet connections were slow (voice messages were large files) and most PCs did not have speakers or microphones.