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Among the key players in this area, [[Lucent]] played a big role and [[IBM]] acquired [[ROLM]] Inc, a US pioneer in ACDs, in an attempt to normalize all major PBX vendor interfaces with its CallPath [[middleware]]. This attempt failed when it sold this company to [[Siemens AG]] and gradually divested in the area. A pioneer startup that combined the technologies of voice digitization, Token Ring networking, and [[time-division multiplexing]] was ZTEL of [[Wilmington, Massachusetts]]. ZTEL's computer-based voice and data network combined user-programmable voice call processing features, protocol conversion for automated "data call processing," database-driven directory and telset definitions, and custom LSI chipset technology. ZTEL ceased operation in 1986.
Two other important players were [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] and [[Mondago|Tiger Software]] (now Mondago). Digital Equipment Corporation developed [[CT Connect]] which includes vendor abstraction middleware. CT Connect was then sold to [[Dialogic Corporation|Dialogic]], which in turn was purchased by Intel. This CTI software, known as [[CT Connect]], was most recently sold in 2005 to Envox Worldwide. Tiger Software produced the SmartServer suite which was primarily aimed at allowing CRM application vendors to add CTI functionality to their existing applications with minimal effort. Later, and after changing their name to Mondago, Tiger Software went on to produce the [[Go Connect]] server application, which is aimed at providing at helping other CTI vendors integrate with a wider range of telephone systems.
By 2008, most [[Private branch exchange|PBX]] vendors had aligned themselves behind one or two of the [[Telephony Application Programming Interface|TAPI]], [[Computer-supported telecommunications applications|CSTA]] or [[TSAPI]] standard. The [[TSAPI]] advocates were: [[Avaya]], [[Telrad]]. The CSTA advocates were: Siemens (now Unify), [[Aastra]], [[DeTeWe]], [[Toshiba]], [[Panasonic]]. The majority (see main [[Telephony Application Programming Interface|TAPI]] article for detail) preferred TAPI. A few vendors promoted proprietary standards: [[Mitel]], [[Broadsoft]], [[Digium]] and most hosted platforms. [[CT Connect]] and [[Go Connect]] thus provided an important translation middle-layer, allowing the PBX to communicate in its preferred protocol, while an application can communicate using its preferred protocol.
Many of the early CTI vendors and developers have changed hands over the years. An example is Nabnasset, an [[Acton, Massachusetts]] firm that developed a [[CORBA]] based CTI solution for a client and then decided to make it into a general product. It merged with Quintus, a [[customer relationship management]] company, which went bankrupt and was purchased by [[Avaya]] Telecommunications. Smaller organisations have also survived from the early days and have leveraged their heritage to thrive. However, many of the 1980s startups that were inspired by the "[[Bell System divestiture|Bell Breakup]]" and the coming competitive telephony marketplace, did not survive the decade.
On the hardware level, there was a paradigm shift since 1993, with emerging standards from [[IETF]], which led to several new players like [[Dialogic Corporation|Dialogic]], Brooktrout (now part of Dialogic), Natural MicroSystems (also now part of Dialogic) and [[Aculab]] offering telephony interfacing boards for various networks and elements.
Until 2011, it was the makers of telephone systems that implemented CTI technologies such as [[TAPI]] and [[CSTA]]. But after this time, a wave of handsets become popular that were independently made. These handsets would connect to the telephone systems using standards such as [[SIP]] and consumers could easily buy their telephone system from one vendor and their handsets from another. However, this situation led to poor quality CTI since the protocols (ie SIP) were not really suitable for third-party control.
So, handset vendors started to add support for CTI directly. Initially this would be over proprietary HTTP methods, but in time [[uaCSTA]] (aka TR/87) became popular and by 2016 most SIP handsets support uaCSTA control. These include: [[Snom]] (the first to pioneer it), [[Yealink]], [[Akuvox]], [[Panasonic]] and [[Aastra]].
== See also ==
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