March 1998

BY ROSIE PONGRACZ

Computer-telephony integration (CTI) at the desktop has the potential to be one of the most powerful tools for highly productive business interactions. To date, CTI has succeeded most widely at the system level in enterprises, rather than at the desktop, with applications such as server-based voice mail providing answering machine capability, and IVR- and call center-focused systems automating customer service and enabling self-service. Since enterprise-wide desktop telephony can integrate with and enhance legacy systems, there is no reason to avoid adopting this technology now.

BARRIERS TO ADOPTION
Some of the barriers for CTI moving to the desktop still need to be solved, while others have been addressed. The biggest obstacles have been:

Integration With Existing Systems
Most businesses that have a PBX or key system equipped with voice mail have been reluctant to replace these systems with PC voice servers for cost and reliability reasons.

Reliability
Expectations for voice reliability and availability are much higher than computer networks. PC-based voice systems are still only as reliable as the PC and OS.

Management
Most LAN and data network managers have been reluctant to add voice to the network because of traffic, performance, and integration unknowns. Plus, who manages the voice server: IT or Telecom?

Mobile And Remote Workforce
The number of mobile, remote, and telecommuting employees is growing, and desktop solutions need to become more portable and provide an easy, cost-effective remote connection. The telephone is still the most accessible and cost-effective way for a mobile force to connect, vs. a laptop.

Quantifying Productivity GainsEnterprises look for measurable results and ROI, as well as overall productivity impact. So far, desktop communications applications haven’t provided those hard numbers. Customer service and call manage-ment systems, on the other hand, can demonstrate return on investment in equipment costs, reduced call times, fewer lost calls, and improved customer satisfaction.

AN EVOLVING NETWORK AND DESKTOP
A number of technology trends are fueling the transition of desktop telephony beyond call center and service provider niches into mainstream business environments:

• The evolution of the Web from an information gathering source to a truly interactive communications medium.
• Increased integration between not only PC-telephony software and other individual communications programs, but between PC telephony software and the corporate PBX.
• The advent of CTI architectures based on the latest open communica tions and messaging standards — TAPI, MAPI, SAPI, H.323, and H.324.

The promise of new technologies like Internet telephony and videophone technology is driving users to investigate all modes of PC communication.

In addition, leading PC manufacturers and communications software companies are creating faster, more powerful multimedia platforms and collaborative applications that bring the combined power of telephony, messaging, and Internet communications to the PC. "Personal interaction applications" are emerging that integrate fax, voice, e-mail, video conferencing, electronic white boarding, and other Internet technologies, creating a rich communications environment for the knowledge worker. These solutions offer users a unified way to manage communications using a wide range of potential devices from PCs to standard handsets to dedicated, low-cost "terminals" — independently and in combination.

According to Blair Pleasant, director of communications analysis with the market research and consulting firm The Pelorus Group (Raritan, NJ), "the evolution of desktop telephony into the personal productivity space and onto individual desktops signals a new model for communications. Flexibly linking information with phone calls will transform the way companies operate," Pleasant says. "For example, individuals receiving a telephone call on the PC can access screen pop information associated with the caller from a Personal Information Management program (PIM) and answer the call, direct it into voice mail or perhaps play a customized message. These types of applications are enabling new levels of individual productivity."

CENTRALIZE RESOURCES
With the number of business and personal contacts continuing to increase, today’s knowledge workers can better appreciate the value of being able to simply click on a phone number in an address book to begin a conversation or open a single mailbox to retrieve voice, fax, or e-mail messages. Simply having a single, centralized resource for consolidating contact information is helpful. When an informative dialog box on the PC announces incoming calls, workers don’t have to be interrupted by the annoying ring of the telephone; they can begin to control their communications activities and make better use of their time. Using advanced capabilities like caller ID, they can literally "see" who is calling and prioritize call answering, rather than exchanging numerous messages back and forth. Users can also direct a pre-recorded answer to a specific caller, thereby exchanging information without the overhead of a real-time conversation, yet providing some level of personalization to help re-humanize electronic communication.

Convenience is as compelling a reason as any for businesses and individuals to more fully incorporate desktop telephony as a full member of the PC communications environment. However, only when PC-based communications are as reliable and as easy to use and more convenient than using a standard telephone handset, will the majority of knowledge workers take advantage of the full power of unified communications.

THE KILLER COMMUNICATION APP
A compelling CTI application for today’s evolving communication desktop would integrate easily with the corporate PBX. It would enhance and extend companies’ existing legacy communications network and equipment infrastructure, but be flexible enough to incorporate new technologies and capabilities as they became available. This application would provide a rich communications experience for individual users — one which fits their work-style requirements. Individual knowledge workers can benefit from communications applications that are more intuitive and easy-to- use, and that eliminate mundane tasks such as looking up phone or contact numbers in multiple directories, and opening and launching multiple diverse applications. And to be truly compelling, this application shouldn’t impact the already overburdened LAN.

At the heart of these types of personal interaction applications are object frameworks that are modular enough to encapsulate the necessary functions for establishing connections between end-users, and selecting the appropriate set of media streams to send over those connections. The frameworks are simple enough to be used by developers from within a variety of applications, yet they provide a consistent interface to the end-user. They are granular enough that only the necessary objects need to be learned by developers and distributed to end-users, and can therefore be dynamically integrated into a live system as called for by the end-user’s changing needs. Finally, the object frameworks are built on top of industry standards to provide a higher degree of "shareability" and interoperability (on the same machine, and between machines across a connection).

CTI ARCHITECTURE FOR THE DESKTOP
The architecture for a useful and usable CTI product for the enterprise needs be flexible enough to adapt to evolving communication standards, applications, network and media transport protocols, and platform, interoperability, and international requirements.

A modular architecture addresses the flexibility needed at each layer. Thisdesign underlies personal interaction applications that support both real time and non-real time (messaging) communications over various media: voice, video, data.

PLATFORM AND STANDARDS
Personal interaction applications provide a unified communication experience for end users, based on their platform capabilities and work-styles.

The UI Layer
Personal interaction applications have a UI layer that can be changed to meet requirements for work-style, environment, and even branding. UI components are created for the entire set of communication capabilities. These applications sense the platform capabilities, apply localization requirements, and verify that communication interfaces and drivers are present. The UI layer is generated dynamically from this information.

Communication Components
Companies and products are being created for very specific environments such as Internet telephony or contact management. Each of these applications can be seen as a different interaction component that is part of the overall communication solution. Each interaction component needs to be ‘swappable’ within the UI framework to provide users the maximum flexibility as they change components based on their own needs.

An abstraction layer of APIs between the application component layer and the platform layer meets these changing environments. That way, standards and application components can change and be replaced.

Another advantage of this architecture is modular updatability. As new applications, communication modules, and platform drivers become available, personal interaction applications can update the changing components.

Network And Transport Layer
Each communication component may use a different network concurrently; as in an enterprise environment where a phone call may originate through the PBX and add in a video conference over the Internet. The personal interaction applications need to sense and adapt to the transport layers that are being used.

To support the enterprise communication environment, TAPI 2.1 can now abstract the call control from various telephony devices. With newer versions of TAPI, IP-based communications will be abstracted as well.

Interoperability
The communication products available now have to integrate with existing systems and products. For example, enterprises utilize a wide range of contact management products. Support for standards such as MAPI, DDE, OLE, ODBC, and others is necessary to provide access to legacy data. Additionally, in the enterprise, data is often server-based, so the address book should be cached locally.

Internationalization
Personal interaction applications should be able to detect the language of the OS and install and configure automatically. Text and windows should size dynamically to adjust to the sizes of the words.

Enterprise Usability
The UI’s of these new solutions fit unobtrusively into the Corporate Desktop. For example, they can be displayed as a system tray icon or a Windows GUI Within that window, calls and contacts can be visually managed, providing a valuable addition to the desktop handset. As Active Desktop UI is adapted, call control components will be able to be installed as user selectable ActiveX components. These UI’s also address the interaction between making calls and finding those contacts to call. The user sees both; the call status — who they are talking to on which line — as well as various address books, both local and server-based.

ENHANCE LEGACY ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS
PBX And PC-PBX
Integration with the existing communication network and corporate infrastructure should be painless. In this case, the software should support locally installed digital modems with no need for a new network server. Reliability is addressed by using a pass through to the handset if the PC is off or unavailable.

A TSP (Telephony Service Provider) in the PC integrates with the PBX call control protocol. The TSP abstracts the call control layer from the application, so that the various PBX features and protocols are made available to the application. This provides interoperability among various PBXs.

TAPI 2.1 provides standard mechanisms for controlling multiple call appearances, and through configuration of the TSP for a specific phoneset, can monitor phoneset usage and control call activity from the UI.

Corporate Database
Integration with the corporate address book database should be provided through available APIs. For example, MAPI support provides integration with local PIMs such as Microsoft Outlook, as well as access to Microsoft Exchange servers for corporate directories. Additional address books could be supported through DDE and OLE. Finally, dialing is tracked through PIMs and calls can then be manipulated by the personal interaction application.

Corporate Network
Personal interaction applications should provide a level of administration that is adaptable to the Windows Zero Administration initiative. For example, by using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), a network administrator can update and install the application, and enable and disable features for a single PC or groups of users. This is accomplished by creating PDF files (package definition files). Another available server-based mechanism to control feature sets is the System Policy Editor. Additionally, these applications should be flexible enough to provide local feature enabling if a network is not present.

Personal interaction applications will evolve as the communication standards and infrastructure become available, and incorporate communications components such as IP voice and video conferencing. The result? Simplified, yet enriched, desktop communications.

Rosie Pongracz is manager, telephony products, for Aveo, Inc. (formerly Cypress Research Corporation), and can be reached at [email protected]. Aveo develops and markets the MegaPhone line of personal interaction applications that let end users reach for their PCs as the preferred way to communicate. These applications are integrated with Internet and visual communication technologies, increasing the productivity of knowledge workers at home, in small offices, and in large enterprise environments. For more information, contact the company at 408-486- 7900 or visit their Web site at www.aveo.com.