Third-Party IP Telephony Applications
As we discussed earlier, Cisco is a networking hardware designer and manufacturer,
not a software company. Its primary focus is, and should be, the hardware
aspect of IP telephony. Because Cisco’s AVVID architecture is built on open standards,
it has opened the door for numerous vendors to either write new software
to become interoperable with Cisco’s solutions and/or to make their existing
software interoperable. It seems to have worked. Although IP telephony is a still a
relatively new technology, companies are already seeing its potential and have
started to develop applications designed to work alongside Cisco’s IP telephony
architecture.This can only continue to make IP telephony a more accepted alternative
to the traditional systems.This section will introduce three vendors who
have designed software to work with the IP telephony solution: Interactive
Intelligence, Latitude, and ISI. Chapter 7 will discuss these as well as other applications,
and how to choose the appropriate applications for your needs.