During the next couple of years, the changes in PBX technology and the providers are going to be revolutionary. After 10 years of predicting the end of the traditional TDM telephone system, the day is finally upon us. Of course, IP-based PBXes have been taking over new system sales for the past few years. However, it was a world in which both technologies and their respective manufacturers have co-existed.

On one side the traditional TDM PBX stalwarts, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel and NEC were “adapting” their platforms to support IP trunking and stations, trying to convince the world that evolution was safe and good. On the other side of the fence, Cisco, Shoretel and 3Com were doing well by articulating their “pure” IP pbx technology, throwing out the old.

It’s my belief that the day the music stopped for TDM was January 14, 2009. It was this day that Nortel entered into bankruptcy proceedings. This former market leader went from number one to a business casualty in a few short years. There is not much doubt that the rapidity of the descent was caused by the turtle-like response to the changing technologies and needs of the marketplace over the past few years. While Nortel is the poster child for the decline in the traditional pbx manufacturer, they will certainly not be alone in the dust heap of pbx manufacturer history.

Soon, most business telephone systems will be an application residing on the data network. This is truly revolutionary in nature. As much as Cisco, Shoretel and 3Com moved the technology from TDM to IP, the resultant products more or less did what their technology predecessors did – make and receive phone calls and store voice messages. These systems still rely on proprietary hardware, software and a farm of servers. In Cisco’s case, it might even be called a ranch. Not very green, quite closed and by architecture, expensive to maintain.

Now, a much more significant change in the pbx world is occurring. Using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware combined with standards-based software, the phone system can now be open and based upon best-of-breed technology. Remember when that happened to data? The personal computer was the start of the technology revolution as it was standards-based and open

Our company, Teledynamic, saw the writing on the wall and has moved quickly to gain the necessary product lines and technical skills to adapt to this new model. And along the way, our sales and support model will change in a very substantial way too. Customers will now be free to pick and choose components and applications as they do in the data world. There is no standard data network – ironically due to the fact that there are standards. Since everything works with everything else (more or less <BG>), every data network is custom-designed for a specific customer’s needs. So it will be with the PBX.

So our role becomes one of integrator and consultant, rather than product representative and equipment repair company. As part and parcel of the data network, the ability to integrate with data and mobile applications will provide heady technical challenges. This new-found freedom will certainly provide wonderful new communications tools to our customers, but will result in a much more challenging implementation and support environment.

And it is with that extraordinarily long introduction, I’m happy to announce that Teledynamic has fully embraced this new model. We recently introduced the Digium Switchvox and Interactive Intelligence products that will help us help our customers in this new world. I welcome you to visit our website at www.teledynamic.com to learn more.

Let me know your thoughts.

Randy Kremlacek

Randy is the President of Teledynamic Communications. The company specializes in premise-based and hosted SIP PBX’s, pbx monitoring and Unified Communications.