October 1998

BY KEVIN M. MAYER

Integration -- the I in CTI -- provokes a range of responses. Some would claim that integration will never happen, that it's all a lot of hype. Others would assert that it's pass, that we've already moved beyond mere integration to the ultimate, that is, to seamless, PC-mediated telephony. So, the authorities disagree. Why should anyone care? There's at least one good reason: understanding integration, in all its forms, will help us distinguish between fluff and fact. Such understanding, then, has an immediate practical benefit. It helps us dispel the hype that might otherwise obscure our real communications options.

The first thing to understand about integration is that it works on multiple levels. At the most basic level, it serves to connect devices, specifically, devices that were not originally intended to work together. The classic example is the proprietary link between a mainframe computer and a PBX.

If we were to suppose that integration ended there, however, we might find ourselves susceptible to hype about any further convergence between computer and telephony systems. After all, since the time these proprietary links were first implemented, in the early 1980s, many products and services have been launched, all of them accompanied by the literature of celebration - press releases and promotional flyers and brochures. If we were to accept the idea that integration was complete, we might take all the promotion at face value. We might uncritically accept the usual claims, that this or that product or service represented something unique, a true breakthrough, as opposed to a (mere) variation on the overall theme of integration.

Actually, there's far too much celebratory literature for anyone to take it too seriously. Instead, we all make allowances for the extravagant claims we read, the way we might adjust to driving through a dense fog. It is a shame, though: Just as a fog can obscure an attractive landscape, hype can obscure an exciting industrywide trend.

In our industry, the key trend was, is, and will continue to be integration. First, integration was a matter of connecting disparate pieces of premises-based equipment. Then, integration became a matter of connecting voice and data networks, both within independent premises and beyond, throughout enterprises. And soon, integration will be a matter of constructing unified, all-purpose infrastructures, as service providers and carriers meet the challenges posed by unanticipated Internet growth.

Integration, at all these levels, is what CTI is about, even though all the hype may seem to reduce CTI to a confusing and directionless war of widgets. Indeed, all the hype may have provoked a backlash. For example, a report recently issued by Forrester Research argues that a single network infrastructure for corporate voice and data will never be fully realized. According to Forrester, "Voice data integration will enjoy only limited success due to minimal cost savings, network management complexities, and slow carrier development of integrated services."

The Forrester view would appear to have little in common with the rosy scenarios presented by those who propagate industry hype. But these apparently contradictory views do have something in common: an unwillingness to contemplate the complexities and effort involved in pushing the integration front into new territory. On the hype side, complexities simply aren't acknowledged. Everything is "robust" and "scaleable" and "seamless." Basically, the impulse is to pretend everything is easy.

On the Forrester side, complexities are so daunting that they discourage any further attempt at progress. The Forrester report's author, Maribel Lopez, asserts that "there just isn't a compelling case to be made for voice data integration. The cost savings are marginal at best. It introduces a new level of complexity to network operations. And there aren't any applications that justify the effort."

So, are separate networks forever, as Forrester suggests? Only if current complications prove insurmountable. In any case, if voice data integration fails, it won't be for lack of trying. Networking and switching vendors such as 3Com, Ascend, Bay, Cisco, Lucent, Nortel, and Siemens aren't limiting their efforts to the creation of marketing campaigns. They're committing considerable technical resources to what they see as the next logical step in the overall trend towards integration.

What do the networking and switching vendors see that Forrester doesn't? It's possible that whereas Forrester takes a narrow view of integrated networks - judging them, for the most part, on their ability to cut costs - the vendors may take a broader view. To them, networks may not represent a cost to be minimized, but a resource to be developed. To take this view, however, is to think in terms of integration in yet another way, to think in terms of integrating technology with business needs.

If that sounds obvious, it isn't. Implementing communications technology successfully, that is, using it to establish a competitive advantage, isn't as easy as coming up with the money to pay for new equipment. If that were the case, an enterprise's competitive advantage could disappear in as little time as it takes to write a check. So, it is perhaps just as well that hype can't be trusted. Integration isn't easy. It is, moreover, at least hard enough that efforts to further integration just might result in sustainable competitive advantage. That, if nothing else, should be worth some trouble.

To sum up, we might acknowledge that integration - the I of CTI, or computer telephony integration - is in the eyes of the beholder. For example, there are people who would accept integration up to a point, but overlook integration possibilities beyond that point. Typically, these people embrace the PC-as-phone as the ultimate breakthrough, something that would save us from ever having to think about integration again. Yet, accessing PBX functionality via a PC, or even using a PC to emulate a PBX, doesn't necessarily mean the underlying voice and data networks are integrated. Thus, a rosy outlook - one that would truncate integration considerations, one that would even dispense with the I in CTI - could linger on the literature of celebration and fail to take account of the challenges (and opportunities) posed by voice data integration at the network level.

At the other extreme, we have people who readily admit that integration is possible beyond a certain point, but who conclude that the benefits of further integration are too meager to justify the work involved. These people, as represented by Forrester, would claim that voice data integration is impractical, however desirable it may be. For these people, the I in CTI is anything but invisible. It is, rather, an insurmountable obstacle.

A more moderate view - one between the extremes of the invisible I and the insurmountable I - might be best, however. The moderate view would admit a broad view of integration, recognizing it as more than a narrowly conceived technical or cost-containment issue. Integration is, rather, a habit of mind. It is a creative impulse, one that entertains novel combinations, some of which actually produce useful (that is, profitable) results. It can be a challenge, as anything dynamic usually is, but who would prefer stasis? Stasis, while it occasions no special difficulties, offers nothing in the way of new possibilities. If you want growth, you want integration. Thus, in CTI, we should never forget the I, nor should we be overwhelmed by it.

Kevin M. Mayer is the executive editor of CTI magazine. To respond to the author directly, send an e-mail message to kmayer@tmcnet.com.