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Office phones face new threats. Will enterprises hang up on desk phones?
<<<... But while they continue to sell desk phones, major vendors are pushing alternatives. Cisco provides software for Nokia E-Series dual-mode phones that extend office phone system functions to the handsets. The phones are already available in Europe through Orange and TeliaSonera, and in Japan through NTT DoCoMo, said Chris Kozup, mobility solutions marketing manager at Cisco. US mobile operators are still unsure about the business model for such phones, which could make enterprises more loyal but also cut down on call revenue, he said. Avaya also is working with mobile phone vendors on making dual-mode handsets work with its software and will reach more phones through its acquisition of Traverse Networks last year, said product manager Jamie Lawson.
"The future is going to be a future of choices," said analyst Elizabeth Herrell of Forrester Research. However, no one wants to have four phones, she said. One solution may be base stations that turn wireless phones into desk phones while an employee is at the desk. Neither of the two biggest IP phone makers has quite embraced this idea, however. Cisco has a cradle that charges its 7921G Wi-Fi phone and acts as a speakerphone, but the calls still go wireless. Avaya lets users treat a mobile and a fixed phone as one, so when one is off the hook the other is too.
Desk phones can't go away overnight, if only because of an installed base estimated by IDC at about 500 million. Even Gartner's Dulaney thinks it will take five to seven years for wireless office phones to replace wired. In the end, users will have to push vendors to change course, Forrester's Herrell said. "No one's going to walk away from that revenue stream of business phones until the users decide they don't want it," she said.