Dialing for Dollars: There were dozens of...
Dialing for Dollars: There were dozens of flying cardboard pigs hanging from the ceiling at the L.A. Convention Center last week. The occasion: the annual Computer Telephony Conference and Exposition, where 32,000 optimistic attendees looked for ways to help their $6-billion-a-year industry take a bigger bite out of the $400-billion telecommunications industry.
Much of computer telephony is arcane, behind-the-scenes technology that runs huge call centers, such as customer service departments that are reachable by a toll-free number. A more consumer-oriented example of the technology is the 777-FILM line, which allows callers to sift through a menu of choices and use a touch-tone phone to find show times for movies.
Big players such as Lucent Technologies, Northern Telecom and Siemens are being joined by hundreds of small firms, all hoping to bridge the gap between voice and data systems. Companies in the cable, health-care, utilities, human resources and financial services industries are big potential customers.
A study by the Pelorus Group, a market research firm in Raritan, N.J., found that 20% of companies surveyed were using or trying out some kind of computer telephony system, and another 40% of companies are considering it.
That has prompted companies such as Intrinsic Solutions of Hampton, N.H., to invent products like Sybil, a device that looks like a telephone but plugs into a computer and can be used as a substitute for a keyboard and mouse. Sybil’s creators believe its telephone-style design offers a more inviting way for technophobes to send e-mail or create a computer file.
