Short Take: Cisco rolls out unified messaging strategy

Cisco Systems rolled out a strategy with a number of partners to provide technology to implement unified messaging--a combination of voice, fax, and email access. The strategy hinges on the company's existing line of AS 5000 family of dial-up access hardware and includes third parties like Amteva Technologies, Software.com, and NetCentric, among others. Cisco also released a new set of software to manage so-called modems pools, the banks of dial-access modems used by ISPs.