The future of computer telecommunications integration

D.G. Messerschmitt
1996 IEEE Communications Magazine  
This issue of IEEE Communications Magazine describes activities in integrating the desktop computer with the telephone system (computer-telephony integration, or CTI), giving users easier access to telephone feature sets leveraging the computer's graphical user interface, or allowing a telephone call to be incorporated into a larger computer application. In the preface to this issue, Vint Cerf asserts that CTI is but one step in a "revolution" that is taking place in the way computers are used
more » ... n conjunction with telephony. Agreeing strongly with this basic thesis, in this afterword we speculate on the specific form that the computing and telecommunications infrastructure will take in the future. We hypothesize that CTI is but one step in the evolution to a seamless and interoperable integrated telecommunications and computer infrastructure, and this may arrive surprisingly soon as enabled by some recent technological developments. In [1] we give a more detailed roadmap to the convergence of telecommunications and computing, as well as describe many important research issues, and in [2] we describe some of the societal trends and problems that follow from these technological advances.
doi:10.1109/35.489715 fatcat:3mgb7diejnecnpqhxympb6wrmm