There is a IP based system that can be programed just as easy as a TDM system. It is called ShoreTel.
If that's true why don't the mainstream manufacturers design their systems the same way? I'll tell you why, it's because the manufacturers are in bed with the IT industry. The IT industry has the $$$, they have the clout and they have the influence.
Problem is the traditional telcom industry has been taken for granted all these years because we operate in the background with little if any fanfare. How many telecom magazines with ads for the latest offerings from Avaya, Vodavi, ESI, etc. have you ever seen? Compare that with litterly tons of IT publications, many available at newsstands.
In a few words we are doomed because of our apathy. We have no industry group that would push manufacturers for the design of new VoIP systems to emulate the proven programming interface of the previous TDM systems or their packaging.
So now we have systems that require programming code and are packaged like other computer hardware. VoIP is just another method to move voice from one phone to another. Systems that use it didn't have to be designed from the ground up to be a piece of computer hardware, they could have just as easily been an upgrade to existing TDM systems. But we let it happen, the IT industry made their demands. THEY wanted something that THEIR people could understand, something that THEY were used to working with. The manufacturers listened and this is it.
Problem too is the IT industry operates much like the legal profession. Laws are written by lawyers so only lawyers will understand them. The IT industry creates much of it's software and hardware so only they will understand it.
Sure, that's not to say that we can't learn something new but what good will it do us when every CG is selling a telecom solution and people forget us and begin to consider them as well as Dell, Microsoft, Crisco, CDW, etc. the places to purchase their telcom solutions?
Yup, I really gotta get out of this business.
-Hal
