inrich consulting

VoIP phone applications; real value or just a novalty?

The variety of applications available to run directly on VoIP phones is quite amazing; world clocks, weather forecasts, stock tickers, room booking systems and even remote surveillance.  These applications definitely provide a novalty value but do they actually provide any business benefits?

At Inrich Consulting we only see true businesses benefits when phone based applications remove the need for more expensive physical alternatives such as a PC, touchpanel or information kiosk. In other words the benefit is cost savings! Generally this excludes applications for desk based office workers as they already have a PC … and lets face it, no matter how cool it is to have a stock ticker on your phone there is no way you will continue to use this once the novalty has worn off.

Example locations that do benefit from phone based applications include; booking systems in meeting rooms, ordering systems in hotel rooms, paging systems in hospital wards, and staff directories in office corridors and reception areas. In these circumstances the phone can provide specific functionality where a more expensive PC, touchpanel or information kiosk would have been required.

The growth of phone based applications is directly due to vendors providing software development kits for third parties. Companies such as Berbee, LiteScape, and Eporta have found the potential development opportunities for customers has grown as the installed base of VoIP phones, with processing power of small PCs, has grown.

A specific and more unusual example from a project we have been involved with is the implementation of an audio visual room control system. The above screen shot shows the interface. Users within this banking client could control everything from the lights, displays, and change channels on an IPTV enabled set-top box by using the touch screen on the phone.

The overall solution used products from Pivod (for the XML applications), Starbak (for the IPTV content delivery) and from AMX (the room control systems which were IP enabled).

Entry Filed under: ip telephony, voip