Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Dan A Knudson

Jeremy Thomas Buch

Paul D Tidwell

Siddharth Bhai

James J Simmons

Handling an incoming call from a caller to a user includes prompting a caller to record a message to the user and sending a special command to a user communication device indicting that the incoming call is available for screening and retrieving. In response to the user indicating a desire to screen the incoming call, the user listens to the message while the caller is leaving the message. In response to the user indicating a desire to retrieve the incoming call, the call is transferred to the user communication device. In response to the user indicating a desire to screen the call, an incoming media stream from the incoming call may be forked so that the message is being recorded while the user is listening to the message at the user communication device.

Voicemail screening and call retrieval

Described is a technology by which a target machine (managed device) is provisioned with arbitrary states for subsequent communication with a central authority, in which the configuration provisioning of the device is decoupled from the collection of the provisioning data. In a provisioning phase, arbitrary state information for provisioning the managed device is obtained and packaged in a container. In a configuration phase, the container is accessed, and the arbitrary state information is unpackaged to apply state to the managed device. The target machine thus may be provisioned with arbitrary states without actively communicating with the central authority.

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Zurich, Switzerland

Dan A Knudson