desk phone

End of the Desk Phone Era

One of the ubiquitous elements of a corporate desk in virtually any cubicle or office is the desk phone. When new employees join the team, assigning a phone number and supplying them with a phone are typically some of the first steps for getting them set up and ready to work.

A recent article on SearchUnifiedCommunications examines whether or not the desk phone is a dying breed. In an age of unified communications where users can make and receive calls from their computer using softphones and where much greater integration with and reliance on mobile phones is a key component, it seems that the desk phone is no longer necessary- like the appendix is no longer necessary in the human body.

Well, perhaps its premature to declare it unnecessary? Recent medical studies have suddenly discovered that the body makes valuable use of the appendix- an organ that has been dubbed useless for over a century. Like the appendix- news of the death of the desk phone may be exaggerated.

For one thing- companies already have them. So, sales of new desk phones may slow dramatically, but that doesn’t mean that companies won’t continue using the desk phones they’ve got until they’ve squeezed out every last drop of possible productivity from them.

Another issue is the performance of the computer itself. Desk phones are not cheap - corporate desk phones cost a few hundred dollars each. It may seem logical to suggest that users just leverage softphones and unified communications on the computer they already have rather than investing in the desk phone. That assumes that the computer has the horsepower to multitask and still manage to make and receive phone calls without impacting voice quality.

Many companies may find that they need to invest in upgrading the computer hardware to make the move to pure softphones feasible. As a long-term strategy, it may make sense to invest in the robust computer hardware. If you’re going to spend money either way, better to invest it in advancing technology and adapting to evolving communications methods instead of legacy equipment.

Death of the Desk Phone

At Voicecon 2009 in Orlando last week, Microsoft’s Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the unified communications group, pointed out that the desk phone is a ‘dead man walking’. Organizations spend an average of $300 per phone, plus the additional cost of running the necessary cabling and jacks to each desk and the power consumption of having the phones plugged in. For one or two users it may not be a big deal, but for organizations with 500, or 5,000, or 50,000 users the cost adds up quickly.

Microsoft Unified Communications, and using Microsoft Office Communicator to replace the desk phone, enables organizations to eliminate those costs. The computer is already there. It is already plugged in. It already has the necessary cables and connectivity installed. It can perform the same functions as the desk phone and then some, so it is a redundant waste of money to have a phone sitting there next to the computer.

Pall also described some success stories around Microsoft Office Communications Server including Swiss telecommunications company Swisscom. According to this Network World article, Swisscom’s head of collaboration services, Andreas Arrigoni said “The software helped shorten sales cycles by 20% and freed up 20 minutes per person per day with efficiencies that left time to do more work.” He then added “The system also supports federated presence so workers at Swisscom can see whether individuals at partner companies are available and by what means.”

RIP desk phone. It has been nice knowing you.