The Microsoftâ Windowsâ Telephony API (TAPI) 2.0, which ships as part the
Microsoft Windows NTâ Server version 4.0 and Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 operating systems, provides the most powerful and flexible platform for developing and using computer-telephony integration (CTI) applications.
TAPI 2.0, which will also be released soon for Windows 95, abstracts the hardware layer, providing developers and users with the freedom of network and device independence. It is the only platform that enables applications for use on PSTN, ISDN, PBX, and IP networks.
The Windows telephony platform is significant because the telecommunications and computer industries are technologically converging. Both developers and end users will benefit from this convergence of the power of telecommunications with the friendliness, flexibility, and scalability of personal computers. The introduction of PC economics and business models into telecommunications is increasing choice, competition, and innovation while maintaining the high reliability people expect from their phone systems.
Computer-telephony integration creates huge opportunities for application developers, telephony network, switch, and hardware vendors, and end users. However, success is dependent upon CTI having at its foundation a robust, reliable operating system that is supported by a rich and powerful set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and related tools to enable this value-added chain to develop and flourish.
The Windows telephony platform provides developers, vendors, and end users with the best combination of solid operating system performance and tightly integrated APIs. The open standards of the Windows platform and TAPI 2.0 provide a rich foundation upon which the CTI industry can build. Complementing TAPI is a powerful collection of other Windows APIs and Win32® functions including the Messaging API (MAPI), the Speech API (SAPI), and Communication, Wave Audio, and Media Control Interface (MCI) functions.
Additionally, Microsoft ActiveX™ Controls give a much broader population of developers powerful and easy-to-implement "plug-in" software components that free developers from having to code the intricate plumbing of an application. Instead, ActiveX Controls allow the developers to use graphical development tools and concentrate on creating applications that are intuitive to use and deliver real user benefits
The abstraction of the hardware layer made possible with TAPI 2.0 is especially significant for CTI developers because historically the field has been a bewildering collection of proprietary switches, meaning that an application could only be written for one part of the industry. TAPI 2.0 frees developers from this burden, allowing a single application to be written that will work across switches.
Because TAPI 2.0 is built into Windows, it has a lower cost of deployment and ownership, and developers can create applications knowing that the large installed base of Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems are already equipped to support their telephony applications. All of this makes Windows an excellent telephony and network communications platform for the future.