Computer Telephony
Microsoft on Integrating Voice,
Video, and Data Networks with Windows 2000
Courtesy of Microsoft
Today, organizations typically use separate equipment, wiring, and
personnel for voice and data networking. This is changing as
widespread adoption of Internet technologies is making it practical
and compelling to run voice and video communication solutions on
data networks. This convergence of voice and data networking can
help companies reduce operating costs, increase productivity, and
enable new business solutions.
Using a converged network can reduce costs by allowing organizations
to better use communications equipment and eliminate redundant
hardware, software, wiring, and support. For example, one of the
most significant costs associated with owning a phone system is the
cost of adding, moving or otherwise changing telephone set
configurations. A converged network infrastructure can allow these
voice-related adds, moves, and changes to be handled automatically
with updating other networking privileges for personnel. Businesses
can cut costs even more by using the Internet instead of private, or
dedicated, phone lines for selected communications between their
offices and with their business partners.
While reducing the total cost of ownership may be a key benefit that
prompts many organizations to deploy converged networks, it is
expected that the potential of these next-generation networks to
enable even more compelling business applications will likely
deliver the most business impact. Increasingly, applications and the
networks over which these applications run are becoming more
integrated. Solutions, such as real-time collaboration, are being
developed and deployed to be able to request certain levels of
network performance based on the user profile, time of day, or other
characteristics. These capabilities allow applications to maximize
whatever bandwidth and network service level is available, while
delivering new forms of business value.
Because of the cost and productivity advantages, most organizations
of all sizes are expected to move toward use of these unified
communications infrastructures over time. The merger of voice,
video, and data networking is in the early stages of adoption today.
Applications that take advantage of these converged communications
capabilities are first appearing in larger organizations in pilot
stages and then in broader deployments with existing legacy systems.
In addition, these convergent solutions are increasingly being
adopted in new facilities/offices where there are no legacy systems
to further amortize.
The WindowsÆ 2000 Server operating system, with its support for
Internet-standard data protocols and its programmable communications
services, provides a flexible foundation for this new generation of
converged data, voice, and video communications. Likewise, Windows
2000 Professional includes client services such as Windows
NetMeetingÆ conferencing software, Phone Dialer, and client software
for browsing, conferencing, and streaming media. These Windows 2000
communications services can help you integrate voice, video, and
data communications to give your organization these capabilities and
more:
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Enhanced Web-based collaboration and conferencing.
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Computer telephony and customer contact centers.
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Unified messaging infrastructure and more.
Computer Telephony and Customer Contact Centers
The term "computer telephony" refers to the use of computing
intelligence to automate the process of handling incoming or
outgoing phone calls. There is a wide variety of computer telephony
applications that deliver cost savings and increased productivity
for organizations of all sizes. One area within the organization
where these computer telephony technologies are often used most
extensively is the call center. Just as network convergence is
impacting data and voice networking in general, convergence is also
impacting the call center in some profound ways and Windows 2000,
with its built-in computer telephony infrastructure support,
provides a great platform for these applications.
You probably use computer telephony applications every day and you
may not realize it. For example, organizations use Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) solutions to allow customers to check account
balances and the status of shipments or to perform other tasksóall
by using telephone dial-pad or speech-driven commands over the
phone, 24 hours a day. Many organizations use fax server
applications, predictive dialers, automatic attendants and other
such applications to reduce communications costs and provide
customer service.
For many organizations, the telephone is one of the most important
vehicles for interacting with its customers and partners. For some
organizations, the telephone has been the only way of interacting
with most customers. As a result, one of the most important usage
areas of computer telephony technology is in the call center. Here,
computer telephony solutions automatically route incoming phone
calls from customers to the next available customer service agent
who is able to most appropriately handle the call. Sophisticated
call routing rules can be used in these solutions to deliver the
best customer service economically, while enabling the organization
to monitor the performance of the entire operation.
The Internet and network convergence is now significantly changing
the way organizations provide customer service. As a result, call
centers are evolving to become customer contact centers, enabling
customers to interact with an agent however the customer desiresóvia
phone, e-mail, fax, chat, Instant Messaging, Voice-over IP, or by
other means. Organizations are already seeing how providing
real-time customer service on the Web can improve their e-commerce
sales so most organizations with call centers are in the process of
evolving these environments to better meet customer needs.
Windows 2000 can play a critical role in these computer telephony
solution areas. With its built-in support of the Windows Telephony
Applications Programming Interface (TAPI) version 3.0 and with new
services, such as Web Telephony Engine, Windows 2000 provides an
organization with new forms of choice and cost-savings for computer
telephony solutions.
TAPI is a software abstraction layer in Windows that allows software
applications written by one vendor to work with phone systems made
by another vendor. TAPI has historically provided the ability for
programmers to make use of several call control features within
their applications for handling calls over the Public Switched
Telephone Network. TAPI 3.0 builds on these capabilities to provide
programmatic support for IP-based and even ATM-based networks, as
well, so that an application can deliver a consistent user
experience regardless of the network infrastructure used to route
the call. Because TAPI 3.0 uses Component Object Model (COM)
technology, a wide variety of programming languages can be used to
develop telephony applications or to telephony-enable existing
applications. This means that enterprise developers and VAR or
system integrator developers can now take advantage of computer
telephony automation in their applications using the computing
language of their choice. In addition, TAPI 3.0 is integrated with
other services in the operating system, such as Active Directory and
QoS, for enhanced manageability, performance, and ease of use.
In fact, Windows 2000 can be used not only as a foundation for voice
communications applications, Windows is also being used as the
platform for a growing number of multi-service communications
systems from a variety of vendors. These next-generation voice
systems, unlike legacy phone systems, provide inherent integration
with the voice applications and provide a compelling user experience
with traditional telephone sets or new IP-based telephone sets.
These systems also deliver new levels of ease-of-use for
administration and an attractive total cost of ownership.
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