Microsoft moves on desktop CTI market

IBM, MITEL and Microsoft have launched a plug-and-play computer telephony integration (CTI) product for small businesses.

The 'affordable' offering comprises Mitel's off-the-shelf telephony operating system, MediaPath. This includes unified email, voicemail and fax, Microsoft's NT and Exchange and IBM PC Server 300. MediaPath can run on any Intel-based platform, and supports up to 96 users.

The package costs from #500 a seat. A comparable private branch exchange (PBX) product costs four times as much, according to Mitel's business development manager Andy White. The price difference, White adds, is due to the move to open systems.

'PBX systems operate in a closed, proprietary environment, without the pressure of market forces. The complexity of CTI integration will cut prices dramatically,' said White.

He added that cost of ownership would also fall, because users had only one box to maintain.'There has been a great delay in getting CTI to desktop developments because proprietary telephony systems have dominated. Traditionally, developers built proprietary systems to sit on PBXs.'

The product marks the start of a migration of CTI products from call centres to the desktop, as predicted in a recent report from analyst Ovum.Traditionally, CTI has been limited to large companies and niche players.

Microsoft hopes to corner the small and medium-sized enterprise market and push Novell out of the CTI frame. Microsoft's CTI interface Tapi sits on 40 million desktops, according to Microsoft.

'Along with MediaPath, we are a force to be reckoned with. Novell has nowhere near our penetration,' said a Microsoft spokesman.