Besides just managing your messages, as unified messaging becomes more popular, the features become more elaborate.

New message notification. Now you can be notified when a new message arrives in your inbox. Some services will forward messages to your cell phone, or page you when a new message arrives in your inbox.

Fax broadcasting. If you often send faxes to multiple recipients, you may want to check out a unified messaging system with this option. All you have to do is send the fax with a recipient list and your service will send out the fax to everyone.

Attachments and forwards. Options with your messages are being enhanced, too. You can attach messages now -- attach a fax in your inbox to an email message and forward it. You can even have a fax forwarded to a machine nearby to get a hard copy.

Info updates. Want stock quotes? Sports scores? News updates? Some unified messaging services will offer this as well.