12. IP Phone Applications:
Your IP Phone Can Do Much More

You can do much more with your IP phone, than with your ordinary phone, because:

• IP phone applications (XML services) show interactive content on the display of your IP-phone;
• you can interact with data from server-based applications via your IP phone just as easy as you use your web-browser to work with your enterprise software;
• you can send and receive data over your network with your IP phone.

With IP phone applications, you can create and deploy services for your IP-phones, tailored to your enterprise needs.

Let’s introduce a classification of IP phone applications and list the most used ones.

1. Information Services

As an IP-phone is a small “always-on” computer, you can quickly access useful information, such as:

• an address book: when your IP phone application is integrated with your enterprise directory (Active Directory or HR software), you can use this service to find your colleague quickly using a number of filters(by name, by phone number, by department etc.);
• content delivery services: this type of services deliver any content to the display of your IP phone in real time; that may be weather information, exchange rates, stock prices, flight numbers, etc;
• streaming audio: allows you to broadcast audio in real-time (for example, using Satellite/FM/AM radio or MP3 player ) to IP phones.

2. Communication Services

The enterprise directory on an IP-phone display

These services streamline your enterprise communications, such as:

• broadcasting: you can make announcements (either live messages or pre-recorded ones) to the selected group of your employees using the speakerphones of their IP phones;
• text messaging: you can send a quick message to your colleague, who will see the message on the display of his IP phone;
• security alerts: this service can immediately alert your security when:
  • somebody places a 911 call,
  • a panic button is pushed or a fire alarm is detected;
• an IP phone service that requires a PIN code to be entered to be able to place a specific call.

3. Interfaces to IP-telephony Software

Any of the IP telephony applications mentioned in here has a full-featured interface. But often you can use a simple IP phone interface with:

• the presence service: you can quickly change your status and the preferred way of communication;
• audio conferencing: you use your IP phone to view the list of participants, send them text messages, ask for a voice (in operator-assisted conferences) etc.

4. Interfaces to Enterprise Applications

The IP phone interface to a conferencing solution

Using the IP phone as an interface to your enterprise software will allow you to improve your business processes without using a PC. For example:

• an interface to ERP software can allow your employees to sign-in and sign-out from work using their IP-phones; work hours per employee are transferred directly to the ERP software;
• an interface to groupware will help you reserve resources or facilities that are shared by groups, departments or individuals;
• integration with surveillance cameras will take the camera images directly to your IP phone.

So, the contemporary IP phone is a small “always-on” computer that can even replace a PC in some cases.

Custom IP Phone Applications

The IP phone applications (XML services) listed above are just examples of what an IP phone can do for you in addition to placing and answering calls. Depending on your business processes, you can either consider the software that already exists on the market or build a custom IP phone service or application that exactly meet your enterprise needs and are integrated with your existing enterprise applications.

You might want to consider building a custom IP phone application, because:

• you only get and pay for the functionality that exactly meets your business needs as your IP phone service is designed exclusively for your network, complying with its unique characteristics, which are not covered by existing solutions;
• you can integrate it with your legacy enterprise applications that are not supported by the software you need;
• it is built with technologies already used in your enterprise to reduce the cost of deployment and maintenance.

IP Phone Application Vendors

• AND Phone suite by ANDTEK
• Arc Voice office by Arc Solutions
• InformaCast by SingleWire
• IPMagix product suite by IPMagix
• IPsession package by IPcelerate
• LiteScape OnCast by LiteScape
• SMARTApps suite by NexLabs
• Syn-Apps IP Telephony Solutions by Syn-Apps

What to Do Next

IP Phone Applications (XML services) extend the functionality of your IP phones and you can benefit from them, if you:

• decide, which services will increase your employee productivity;
• examine the vendors to be sure their solutions provide the functionality you need;
• think about your existing applications to be integrated with IP phone applications.

Also, this is just a rough overview of what IP phone services can do and there is an unlimited number of ways you can use your IP phone in your enterprise, so you can consider building a custom IP phone application to meet your business objectives more precisely.

Read the next chapter: 13. Call Accounting / Call Reporting - How to Manage and Track Your VoIP Communications

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