The OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Platform) has issued its latest recommendation document which defines an open and standardised interface between Visual Voice Mail (VVM) clients and voice mail servers. By gaining consensus for this key enabler between operators and vendors, the OMTP says, market fragmentation can be avoided.
Visual Voice Mail services are becoming increasingly popular with consumers. Instead of having to listen to your messages, VVM enables you to see, control and manage your voice mails from your handset screen and decide whether to reply, delete or even compose a new message via the VVM client. But due to current fragmentation issues across differing handsets, however, the OMTP notes, delivery and growth of VVM is being hampered, and consumers and the industry are missing out as a result. To address this, operators and vendors within OMTP have driven the VVM recommendation.
A key recommendation within the document is for the industry to implement a VVM protocol based on IMAP4 and SMS for natively supported handsets. This will ensure that, whatever the chosen device, the basic procedures will be the same whether youre retrieving messages, changing passwords or changing languages. By ensuring that the standard functionalities of VVM servers can be accessed through a range of VVM clients via the defined interface, service development and delivery can be expedited, service offerings enhanced and user experiences improved, all facilitating faster and wider uptake of VVM services.  
Visual Voice Mail services are highly attractive for mobile users and are becoming more popular in the market, says Michael Hagspihl, Executive Vice President Terminal Management, at T-Mobile International. As such, we are pleased to see that through the successful cooperation between operators and vendors, within OMTP, a standard interface implementation for Visual Voice Mail services has been produced. This common solution will limit market fragmentation and facilitate to develop the market.