I was completely floored to discover, via Paul, that you can control which codec the UM role uses to record voicemails on a per-user basis. This is seriously cool stuff, and if you can't see why quite yet, let me offer the following scenarios for you:
- Most common: you have multiple users who have non-Windows Mobile devices that don't support the WMA codec, but still want to be able to listen to their voicemail on their devices. The GSM and G.711 PCM Linear codecs may be more widely supported. For example, on an EAS-aware iPhone will Apple also roll in support for recognizing UM voicemails? If they do, will they support the WMA codec? Now, in theory, they don't have to.
- Also common: you have multiple users who use a non-Windows based client. (Paul already calls out one example, those of us who use Entourage.) This would be just as valuable, though, for people who are using some IMAP or POP3 client on a Linux/BSD/Solaris box.
- Not so common, but possible: you have a specific need to automatically process voicemails in an automated fashion and need to use either the GSM or G.711 PCM linear codecs instead of being able to support WMA. Switching one or two mailboxes over keeps the entire Exchange storage system from suffering the increase in voicemail file size that would result.
Okay, so these are slightly lame scenarios, but I'm sure there's more out there that I can't see.