By Andy Green, Teleconnect
Jul 5, 2001

Call centers, vendors, dealers, and VARs have all benefited from telephony standards. We take for granted the screen-pop on an agent's desktop. But before Microsoft and telecom standards committees devised third-party call control, only the largest organizations could afford a call center because the software that controls phones and computers had to be built from scratch. With the introduction of CT middleware, vendors finally appeared on the scene that could deliver prepackaged, mass-market ACD (automatic call distributor) software.

Call center apps became more affordable; and call centers for companies outside the Fortune 500 sprang up. A new standard that manages media resources, S.100, may change the call center application landscape again by lowering costs and letting vendors and VARs craft highly specific call center solutions.

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