The continued expansion of the microcomputer industry into territories far from it's beginnings in spreadsheets and word processors offers both a challenge and an opportunity to the large telecomms companies.
Voice Over IP is the most obvious and immediate challenge *1. However, the projected market for Voice Over IP is a small part of the potential growth in the communications industry. Some forecasts predict that the market for data communications will at the start of the next century exceed that of current voice and data traffic. The possibility of making long distance calls for the price of a local call to the user's ISP is one that has attracted more media and public interest than the quieter and more transparent events occuring in private PBX networks.
Companies such as Dialogic offer a range of computer expansion cards which are sometimes referred to as a PBX on a card. Using standard inferfaces such as PCI these boards can be plugged into any modern PC. These PC's usually run Windows NT (Microsoft's 'Industrial Strength' operating system) or Unix. These PBX cards offer great flexibility at affordable prices. Control of PBX cards is normally achieved via a API (Application Programming Interface). The API offers a level of abstraction between the hardware and the high-level software. API's allow hardware manufacturers and CTI applications programmers to develop products independently confident that hardware and software will work together. The two most significant API's are Microsoft's TAPI (Telephony Application Programming Interface) and Novel/AT&T's TSAPI (Telephony Services Application Programming Interface)
The flexibility of this approach to CTI comes from the ability to modify applications, to specify bespoke applications or to develop the applications in house. All these approaches require understanding of the business needs and what objectives the CTI solution aims to achieve.
The traditional telecomms giants are not about to let substantial revenue streams slip into the hand of the computer industry without a fight. The teleco's main strength is a reputation for reliability.
While stressing reliabilty, telecomms companies such as Mitel are increasing the programmability of their switches to offer an alternative to PC based CTI.