Pervasive Messaging

Pervasive messaging is the part of pervasive computing that enables users to communicate with each other. Many of today's electronic messaging systems have their own distinct merits and peculiarities. Pervasive messaging will have to shield the user from these differences. In this paper, we introduce a taxonomy for electronic messaging systems, providing a uniform way to analyze, compare, and discuss electronic messaging systems. With this taxonomy, we analyze the current practice, demonstrating its shortfalls. To overcome these shortfalls, we introduce a novel messaging model: The Unified Messaging System. This system can, in fact, mimic any electronic messaging system, thus providing powerful unified messaging

Unifying User-to-User Messaging

Unification of user-to-user messaging systems facilitates message exchange independent of time, place, protocol, and end-user device. This article describes an approach to unification that is based on introducing a middleware layer instead of employing gateways. It entails a single system that provides common services such as email, fax, and short messaging, but that can also enable novel services that current messaging systems can't support. The authors also describe how the model can be efficiently implemented on a global scale