The only thing that will save the Desktop Phone (rewite)

One of the reoccurring themes in my life has been, “The technology exists NOW, so why can’t/aren’t we doing it NOW”. What this means is that there are things we are all doing RIGHT NOW that are inefficient and counterproductive, yet we keep doing them because a.) we’ve always done them that way, and b.) No one has implemented current technology to do it better. What really chaps me about these “inefficient things” is that we do not have to wait for new technologies to fix them, we have all the tech we need now, we just are not using it.

I’m in business, I use a cell phone. As a consultant I use my cell phone all the time, everyday, everywhere. In fact 4 years ago I decided I had had enough and went exclusively cellular, dropping my landline in my business. When the Local Number Portability Act finally forced my small local teleco to give up numbers, I ported my home phone number to my wife’s cell phone, and then literally pulled all of the copper communication wires out of my house.

I’ve been using a MS Mobile cell phone sync with exchange for some time now, and I love it. I had used ActiveSync with my old Ipaq for years to keep track of numbers. When Microsoft got into the phone market, I jumped right in, it seemed dumb to waste my time looking up a number on a PDA just so I could hand dial it into the phone. They then went further and with Windows Mobile 5 AUK2 added over the air syncing with push e-mail. (Yes, I know you could do over the air syncing with exchange before WM5 AUK2, but let’s not cloud the issue).

Now that my operation is growing to have more than a few employees, I have a need to better intercommunicate with them. While our cell phones and Outlook are ideal for talking to clients, talking to each other, doing email, and collaborating schedules, there are just some features which we need.

1. The Auto Attendant effect, i.e. “Thank You for calling the Tabor Consulting Group”, for McKinley press 1, for Aaron press 2,…”
2. Call Passing; I’m on the phone with Client A. I think that Client A could be better served if he talks to Consultant B. With our cell phones it not real easy for me to “pass” Client A to Consultant B.
3. Those silly little things that make being on a phone tolerable for the incoming caller: music on hold, phone tree, etc

Also for as much as I love my cell phone it does have its shortcomings:

1. Battery Life
2. Speaker Phone is so-so
3. For what it’s worth, when I do have to “dial” a phone number it’s not always easy to hit those little buttons.

For what I do, a desk phone and a business phone system are almost irrelevant. While I know that I am on the cutting edge, I can now see a time when the desk phone is going to have to evolve, or get out of the way. But how should the desk phone evolve?

Fortunately, we have current technology that can bring the desk phone into the 21^st century.

Integration, Integration, Integration. If the internet has taught us anything it is that a standalone device is useless. The modern desk phone must integrate with our current operating business lives. But what does integration mean? The most obvious feature is that it must integrate a business’s communication platform, i.e. Microsoft Exchange. My cell phone goes out to get my contacts, email, and calendar, why not my desk phone?