ting an- swers. Unfortunately, in many organizations, it is more common to reach a voice mail announcement than a real person. Physical Components of Voice Mail and Automated Attendant The system hardware may reside on a shelf in a PBX cabinet or be housed in a separate proprietary cabinet or on a PC. It typi- cally works in conjunction with a PBX or Centrex system. The Automated Attendant and Voice Mail may also work in conjunction with an Interactive System for Voice or Fax response. 96 The Telecom Handbook CHAPTER 5 Voice Mail History The first Voice Mail system was installed in 1980 by VMX, Inc., started by Gordon Matthews, the devel- oper of Voice Mail. VMX has since merged with Octel, which was subsequently purchased by Lucent Technolo- gies, now called Avaya. At first there was considerable resistance to the idea of "having the telephone answered by a machine," but the barriers to acceptance have dropped along with the prices. From The Voice Mail Reference Manual & Buyers Guide by Marc Robins Older Voice Mail systems' physical makeup may resemble that of the PBX. There are circuit boards, each having a certain number of ports, usually two, four, or eight. These circuit boards slide into slots on a shelf either inside the PBX cabinet or into a separate cabinet. Newer Voice Mail systems are almost always PC-based. Proprietary software controls the system functions, which may be accessed by a terminal or PC to make programming changes. As with PBXs, no two systems work in exactly the same way, SO nothing that you learn about one system can be assumed to apply to another. The differences are actually greater among voice mail systems than PBXs. Different Ways of Setting it Up There are some systems that work only as an Automated At- tendant, incorporating no Voice Mail capability or working in conjunction with a separate Voice Mail system. Other systems work only as Voice Mail although most Voice Mail systems may be set up for Automated Attendant as well. All newer PC-based systems incorporate both capabilities