atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones VoIP, being invisible, hamburger

sorry if I put this in the wrong topic, but makes for interesting discussion...

interesting little article about the physical phone and VoIP. also reminds me that, if you and I are good at our jobs, we are invisible to the average user. so, the "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" also can apply to us, as does the "hamburger theory" (we can engineer the system and/or network to a "tee", but we must make allowances for human nature. hence, the "hamburger" part of the theory.


source:
nojitter.com


Reconsidering the IP Phone
Posted by Eric Krapf, Editor | Jul 15, 2009

Dave Michels of Pin Drop Soup has a new feature in which he predicts that 2008 will be the year that IP desk phone sales will peak. Whether you agree or disagree, I don't know many people who think that the vendors made the most of the opportunities to break the mold when phones transitioned from digital to IP. I argued as much in an earlier VoiceCon eNews, also in response to one of Dave's features.

And yet, as I think about it, I'm not sure you can lay all the blame at the vendors' feet. In a lot of ways, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

For example: Hold buttons. Allan Sulkin wasn't the only person who got on Cisco's case for not having a Hold button on their early-generation IP phones. Cisco even caught flak when they did put Hold buttons on the phones but didn't make them red. There was a story at the time about an office manager at a law firm taking her red fingernail polish and painting all of the Hold buttons on the office's new Cisco phones.

Vendors got slammed when they didn't make the new phones look like what people thought phones were supposed to look like. For Cisco, it was an especially touchy issue, because they were trying to convince a skeptical market that voice over IP sounded and worked just as good as TDM. Having the phone look basically the same allowed them (and, eventually, their competitors) to convey the message that you weren't losing any functionality or quality with the new technology. But then go and make somebody's Hold button a softkey instead of an angry-red plastic button, or take away their red Call Waiting Indicator light, and all of a sudden you were some kind of wild-eyed radical hippie freak.

Can any old-timers out there tell me why the Hold button on digital phones was red in the first place? Red says Emergency; it says Panic; it says: This is the single most important key on the phone. Putting people on Hold, getting them the hell out of your ear, that was the most important thing? Or was it an artifact of the old-fashioned multi-line phones with a red hold button and a row of line buttons that lit up white? Where the important thing was not putting someone on hold, but being reminded that they were still there?

In today's market, Microsoft has really benefitted from Cisco's trailblazing, as well as from the passage of time. Cisco really did have to convince the market that voice over IP could work (a task made even more difficult by the fact that, often, it didn't). Now that VOIP technology (mostly) works and is (mostly) trusted by end users and telecom/IT managers, Microsoft can credibly make a case for doing things radically differently with your voice capabilities.

Furthermore, in 2000, telephony at the desk phone was unquestionably still the most mission-critical communications medium; in 2009, it has dropped from that status for many users-those who communicate mostly by email, IM, social networking or mobile devices. So not only is Microsoft free to trash the desk phone, they--and every other vendor without an installed base--would be foolish not to.

That installed base is what hems in the Ciscos and Avayas, but I agree with Dave Michels that the market for IP desk phones is going away, albeit slowly. However, in defending the phone, systems vendors weren't necessarily being mulish or foolish; to a certain extent; they were playing the hand they held.

What I find weird about that posted article is that they turn it around blaming the key for being red is why they didn't bother to put a hold key on the phone. When they are sold on the idea VOIP is a better phone system...don't you think it actually should have all the features, reliability PLUS everything else a TDM system can do before boasting ROI (which never actually was a reality btw). I mean the writer of that article might as well complain about the stupid dial pad on a phone not being like a 101 keyboard instead.

Microsoft has ONE VERY important thing to do first. Make an operating system for the end user that works all the time with all the software customers have bought (at extravagant costs)over the years. People just might get a little upset when they upgrade to VISTA and find out that poor software on their computer that worked under XP not doesn't and that they have to buy it AGAIN to make their phone work.

Desk sets going away? I'd like to know what that guy is smoking.

Good thing they don't remember the green "I HOLD" buttons.

Um, to make it easy to spot? To make it universally-noticeable? Geez, it is probably the most important button on the phone! Should it not stand out like a sore thumb? Even the most ignorant two-dollar temp can understand how to answer a call and press the magic red button.

So a button that was perfectly acceptable in function and color for decades must change as a part of Cisco's attempt at reinventing the wheel? Their idea of pressing soft key #4, then dialing 43 + the desired orbit location (000-255) will be just as easy to comprehend? (Obvious exaggeration).

I believe that red hold buttons became the industry standard in the early 1960s. Until Panasonic took a walk on the wild side and made theirs orange, I believe every manufacturer was sticking with red.

Another question is: Why do these people refer to digital as if it is such old technology? Hey, you can still buy perfectly-good and brand-new analog systems. Are these people just not capable of accepting anything other than IP as being current technology?

These people actually make me see red, with or without a hold button.

I didn't know you could even put a call on hold on a Cisco phone :p

Jeff, that was on their 3rd attempt.

a nicely written reply to that first article -- it's what most of us are already thinking...

Source: nojitter.com

Another Viewpoint on IP Phones
Posted by Eric Krapf, Editor | Jul 16, 2009

John Giese, who's with Avaya, wrote me a very perceptive note in response to my posting on IP phones, and he agreed to let me share it with you:

I'd like to take you to task on your line of thinking re "The Phone is going away because I can use my PC".
That, in fact, could be true IF the PC worked like my Phone.

But, let's face it, the PC does NOT work that way...in fact, it--or some part(s) of its "supporting cast"--often doesn't work AT ALL.
Sometimes it's out of whack for 15 minutes, sometimes it's out for an hour and sometimes it's out for a couple of days (that's how long it takes IT to get a replacement PC to a virtual or mobile worker in a large Organization).

Sometimes I work for a year to get that ONE call from a Prospect that later turns into a large Order. I want to know my phone will work when that call comes in. And, no, neither Microsoft nor anyone else has the right to say "Well...OK...just use your Cell phone". Let's face it, Cell Phones don't work everywhere, or all the time, either, and often the voice quality is substandard to what my Client or Prospect deserve. There are several days each week when I'm on Con Calls for anywhere from 5 to 7, even 8 hours. Want to try that from a Cell phone?

I don't get it, we're all wrapped around the axle about getting rid of $200 desk phones that work perfectly well in favor of having to spend more than $200 to bulk-up a PC, to have to rework a ton of Software and Apps, retrain the Teams that will Admin the new infrastructures and dramatically increase the Lifecycle Management workload, just to end up with an endpoint of lower quality with fewer features and subject to catching the equivalent of the Swine Flu (Viruses) any day of the week.

Huh?

We can all have our cake and eat it, too, btw...use whatever IM Client we want on the desktop to make Click-to-Communicate easy for the User, ubiquitous within the Enterprise and simple to Admin--while keeping it Scalable, Reliable and Feature-rich, simply by gluing two solutions (e.g. OCS + Avaya) together in a true "Best-of-Breed" fashion.

Oh you can put it on hold, you just can't get it back!

When did Cisco phones start working?

Just to pile on to this thread... why do you think Microsoft OCS hasn't been implemented in every company thats already running exchange or server? The simplest explanation is usually the correct one... they can't get the products they already sell to work correctly half the time! e.g. Vista.. they should have called it Siesta... they've been asleep way to long. Gentlemen we should be more worried about google changing the paradigm than cisco or ol billy boy gates. Think about it, when you can make your brand a VERB you've made it to the big time. Google is something that everyone is comfortable with and they have the presence in the market to have a big impact. They are also moving toward open source with the android OS and chrome OS.. if they do a real good job we all could be out of work.