Historically, companies have encountered difficulties when interfacing CT
systems with PBX phone systems because PBX manufacturers have kept their
products proprietary. To get a CT system to work in a PBX environment, CT
vendors had to reverse engineer the native methods of integration that enabled
the CT equipment to perform. PBX manufacturers maintained secrecy for as long as
they could to ensure a captive market for their own CT solution add-ons. Their
exclusivity drove up solution prices and inhibited new product innovation.
But CT vendors have started to fight back with a new product that
integrates PBX features with voicemail, auto-attendant, ACD, IVR, and other CT
functions. NT has been at the core of this new revolution. Although not every CT
server uses NT, more than 80 percent are NT-based.
As Figure 2 shows, very good reasons exist for the high percentage of
NT-based CT servers. First, NT's OS provides a true preemptive multitasking
environment, which is necessary for writing responsive applications. Second, NT
has a solid GUI framework that enables intuitive administration programs. NT has
very good intrinsic support for IP connectivity and a solid security layer that
provides a tight security envelope around critical-administration and
sensitive-message data. Finally, NT offers database connectivity, letting it
connect to corporate databases for seamless IVR and ACD functions.
But enterprises won't be throwing away their PBXs overnight, so the first
use of CT servers will likely be to provide workgroups with ACD functionality.
CT server vendors are keenly aware of this first shot and are making their
packages strong in this area. As businesses become more confident that CT
servers can reliably handle their telephone services, the trend will probably be
for interconnect companies to offer CT servers as part of their standard line of
communications products. As the next wave of CT servers hits the market with
even easier installation processes, the computer distribution channel is
expected to begin moving these products through LAN resellers.
Compared with installing and maintaining separate PBX and CT systems, using
a CT server has several significant advantages. The CT server is easier to
install because you have no PBX integration issues to deal with. Once you hook
up the LAN, incoming lines, and station-set lines, the hard part is finished.
Administering and maintaining the CT server is also easier because of the common
interface for all resident functions. Ultimately, most companies will be able to
maintain their CT servers, saving time and money.
Companies will also benefit from enhanced call handling and better
performance. Packages such as AltiGen's AltiServ offer such features as
Follow-Me, which forwards calls, and Boomerang, which lets you listen to a voice
message, press a button, and initiate a callback to the person who left the
message. Because the PBX features are intrinsic to the CT server architecture,
ACD features work fast because the CT server's ACD software knows the state of
each station line at all times and can instantly respond to incoming calls and
changes in station-set status. Voicemail and auto-attendant features will also
work faster because they don't need to contend with a slow or problematic link
to the PBX.
The field of CT server products is dynamic, with new vendors popping up
almost monthly. With the scramble to be recognized as one of the first to enter
this new market, many vendors have announced products that are clearly not
finished. Also, unlike the venerable PBX products that vendors are attempting to
replace, the new products have standard and optional feature lists that vary
considerably from vendor to vendor. So plan to spend time sorting out vendors
and their products before you buy. (See "When Shopping for a
CT Server," for buyer tips.)
The Merger of CT and the Internet
Just when you think you've grasped the idea of computers and telephones
working together, the Internet joins the mix, changing the picture radically.
Any CT integration plan must consider IP telephony, which includes both voice
over IP (VoIP) and fax over IP (FoIP). IP telephony had two parents: the bypass
business and VoIP.
In the bypass business, companies used permanent, dedicated T-1 (or larger)
links between locations. Calls placed in one location were digitized, sent over
the bypass link, and dialed closer (and cheaper) to the recipient. As corporate
sophistication grew, so too did the need to run conventional data over existing
wide-area links. Thus, wide-area links had to carry both voice and data
simultaneously, a feat made possible by a technology called voice over data.
This technology integrated voice traffic with data.
Voice over data, however, worked only between sites you controlled. You
couldn't call someone with a computer connection directly, nor could you call a
customer service center via the Web. In fact, the business world didn't give
much thought to the idea of sending realtime data such as voice over the
Internet. The mind-set was that phone calls run over circuits, the Internet is
packet-based, and making the two work together would be difficult.
Meanwhile, consumers were buying computers with sound cards and microphones
to call their friends over the Internet. The PC industry decided to meet their
needs and developed such VoIP programs as NetSpeak's WebPhone. Calls made using
these half duplex programs had dropouts and delays, but they were much cheaper
than calls made using Ma Bell. Thus, VoIP became IP telephony's other parent and
marked the beginning of the upcoming changes in the long-distance market.
VoIP is evolving faster than "traditional" CT. In 1996, VoIP was
barely more than a dream. After the concept was proven both practical and
consumer-friendly, enterprises began pilot implementations. Today, vendors are
demonstrating voice-enabled customer-service Web sites, and some companies use
VoIP for internal communications.
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