[another.creationmyth]

I've asked this at a few other mac forums and I'm curious what you think. I'm a business owner interested in the iPhone as a pda (I'm professional, but I shop more like a pro-sumer); one of the most endearing aspects of it to me is visual voicemail. I primarily use my phone to stay connected with employees and clients, so having vv would simplify a lot.

I don't know if this can be wired to advanced 800 voicemail account or something like that? For example, I'm trying to weight out the benefits against a service like gotvmail's "play it on mobile," which basically allows the same thing (access voicemail on -- not just FROM -- your phone/pda).

Do we have any business owners in the house? Has VV improved anything in your workflow?

[notacheese]

I don't know about visual voicemail *improving workflow*. Sounds complicated!

A friend of mine uses an iphone for his business and seems to like it a lot. It doesn't have a physical keyboard so you're limited to how much you can type in that respect. I also don't know how much the touchscreen interface can really be said to improve productivity, but...

the problem is, in your question you are basically asking if your iphone will replace a pbx system. How can it? two totally different things. Also, visual voicemail on iphone is only for the iphone's voicemail, not your business' gotvmail box or whatever. So again we're talking about two different things. I think ideally the two could probably work together but not necessarily any better than any other pda. Or if so I can't really comment.

[CorpITGuy]

As notacheese mentioned, it won't integrate with your PBX. That would be a great place for third-party development, though! I'd be enthused if Cisco would license the technology and make something like that to integrate with my CallManager system.

In terms of managing workflow, I think you're over-complicating this. Workflow management implies monumental gains in small incremental gains or larger gains. Unless you get hundreds of voicemails per day, you probably spend less time listening to voicemails than you do brushing your teeth. Unless you're the CEO of General Electric, your schedule probably isn't that busy...

But yeah, it saves time - and most importantly, it's really, really convenient. You would probably love it if you had it.