Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
— John F. Kennedy
My job puts me in front of the telephony departments of small, medium, large, and even gargantuan companies on a very regular basis. Not tied to any specific industry, I speak to call center outsourcers, manufactures, wholesalers, retailers, healthcare providers, and just about any vertical you can think of. While they all have unique aspects as to how they deliver services within and without the company walls, I run into the same concerns, fears, and visions for the future. Every telecom manager wants to provide a rich set of reliable, flexible, fast, and powerful features at the lowest cost. Rarely seen as profit centers, budgets are closely monitored and the little fat that might exist is quickly consumed by other departments.
Unfortunately, this model doesn’t always lead to the most cutting edge or forward thinking solutions. Business units often play a huge part in directing the technology the telecom department invests in. That doesn’t mean that they get to pick and choose brands and model numbers. Instead, they say they want something that does this and IT departments get to figure out how to deliver that.
In today’s No Jitter, I explore APIs and cutting edge cloud providers as a way to expand the role of the traditional telecom department.
Tao, Zen, and Tomorrow 