Recently I sat down with Wayne Andrews, leader of a new communication application developer called OnState Communications. You may remember him as the founder of network call-routing provider GeoTel, which was acquired by Cisco in 1999. As usual, I started with my key questions:
What do you see as the fundamental business communications benefit of IP telephony?
Enterprise TDM PBXs are basically "dumb switches" that only know the status of wired telephone devices, but nothing about the users owning the extensions. With standards-based IP telephony, SIP, and presence, coupled with networked application software architectures like Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), all real-time communications are converging with automated business process applications to bring people more directly into the loop.
This brings the benefits of dynamic intelligence into all modalities of "dumb" communications in "Internet time", that is a place where we can use open, Internet-oriented, real-time tools like VoIP, SIP/SIMPLE, XML, Web Services (SOA), Instant Messaging, etc., in order to enable timely, flexible, and cost-effective contacts with the right people to resolve a variety of time-sensitive business problems.
Who benefits in the enterprise?
