n screen, route, and announce incoming calls, "voice-dial" outgoing calls, schedule and remind you of action items, and create on-the-fly conference calls from any phone.
Unified messaging
Single desktop application combin
es all your messages -- voice, fax, e-mail (private network and Internet) -- into a common inbox. Users can respond to messages more efficiently.
Hybrid PCs/telephones
The telephone won't disappear, but CTI applications will begin to replace "dumb" handsets. These devices will give us Internet access and let us control inbound and outbound messages using GUIs instead of arcane key combinations. AT&T, InfGear, Nortel, Sun Microsystems, and others have announced Internet communications devices, which should ship in the first half of this year and sell for about $500.
Distributed Call Centers
Companies can save money by creating virtual call centers that route calls to idle agents all around the country as if they were in one place. The virtual centers will replace traditional centralized call centers with hundreds of telemarketing agents waiting to take incoming customer calls.
Merging voice and data networks
Five years from now, com
municating via a Web browser and a URL will become more prevalent than making a phone call. However, if after browsing a Web site you need to contact a sales representative, you'd only click a button to speak -- and see -- someone. This will become possible only when high-bandwidth networks that blend voice, video, and data become common.
Killer Apps, Today and Tomorrow
