In addition to covering call and contact center I also cover telecom, including hardware, software and services.
Lately I've noticed a slew of interoperability announcements coming from the major IP PBX vendors -- especially Avaya and Toshiba -- a lot of them SIP Trunking interoperability announcements, but also some product interoperability announcements as well.
There are a lot of ITSPs out there competing in the SIP Trunking space right now. They bring a separate Internet connection into your facility and, there you go -- a dedicated IP connection to any end point you want, PSTN, Internet, mobile. It's fast and easy to deploy and brings cost savings and other benefits immediately.
But fast deployment also means companies can switch their service more easily - and this is where the interoperability announcements are key for the service providers. The service providers know no one is going to rip and replace their PBX just to be able to use a service that is "certified interoperable" -- and the vendors know you don't drive customer satisfaction in today's world by locking customers into proprietary systems that don't interoperate with a wide range of services. So, giving customers the freedom to choose from a range of "certified interoperable" solutions, fosters adoption, and gives them peace of mind.
Lately I've noticed a slew of interoperability announcements coming from the major IP PBX vendors -- especially Avaya and Toshiba -- a lot of them SIP Trunking interoperability announcements, but also some product interoperability announcements as well.
There are a lot of ITSPs out there competing in the SIP Trunking space right now. They bring a separate Internet connection into your facility and, there you go -- a dedicated IP connection to any end point you want, PSTN, Internet, mobile. It's fast and easy to deploy and brings cost savings and other benefits immediately.
But fast deployment also means companies can switch their service more easily - and this is where the interoperability announcements are key for the service providers. The service providers know no one is going to rip and replace their PBX just to be able to use a service that is "certified interoperable" -- and the vendors know you don't drive customer satisfaction in today's world by locking customers into proprietary systems that don't interoperate with a wide range of services. So, giving customers the freedom to choose from a range of "certified interoperable" solutions, fosters adoption, and gives them peace of mind.
On the other hand, everyone knows that most products and services are only interoperable "to a degree." By saying their products and services are interoperable, really what most vendors and service providers are saying is that they are "interoperable in terms of the testing we did," but not necessarily all-inclusively of every network scenario out there.
In the case of PBX/SIP Trunking it's arguably easier to achieve (and proclaim) true interoperability compared to other software -- but organizations still have to consider interoperability with other systems such as ACD, IVR, CRM or even back office systems they might want to hold onto. Fortunately SIP has helped facilitate standardization and interoperability of various communications systems and I can still imagine a day when systems are standardized to the point that interoperability won't be an issue at all.
Here are just a handful of the recent interoperability announcements we've covered on TMCnet...
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