Speech Filing System (SFS)
The first voice messaging application, the Speech Filing System (later renamed Audio Distribution System (ADS) was developed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1973 under the leadership of Stephen Boies, who worked on the modern day voice-mail or voice messaging.J. D. Gould, S. J. Boies (1984). Speech filing-office system for principals. 23. IBM Systems Journal. pp. 65. http://domino.watson.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/1be2fd38b451963885256547004c00c8/e82d3ca81c74648b85256bfa00685b80?OpenDocument.
The ADS was meant to mimic the concept of email, but using the telephone as the input device and the human voice as the medium for the message. The first operational prototype was made available to users in 1975 when four people could use it at the same time. From 1975-1981, about 750 IBM executives, mainly in the U.S., used various prototypes in their daily work. Those prototypes ran on an IBM System /7 computer attached to an IBM VM370 for additional storage. In 1978 the prototype was converted to run on a Series /1 computer. In September, 1981, IBM announced the "Audio Distribution System" and the first customer installation was completed in February, 1982. The ADS, marketed directly by IBM and for a short while by AT&T Corporation, was richly featured for voice messaging, the result of IBM's enormous research in human factors and observing SFS in real operational use. However, the system required special attention (special room, special power, air conditioning, etc.) and had major limitations, for example, it was physically large, expensive, limited to 1,000 users, had no telephone answering mode (could not answer outside calls), and had to be taken out of service to make administrative changes to the user data base. The result was failure of ADS as a commercial product.
Read more about this topic: Voice-mail, Pioneering Applications
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