Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 19Valentine's Day is the commemoration day (January 2000)
These contents translated a serialization article carried by ITPro IP telephony ONLINE published by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. Jump to the original (Japanese).
Shinji Usuba
General Manager
eSound Venture Unit
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd
The day of the shipment judgment meeting came while verifications of the remaining issue were not yet complete. While I stood making my explanation, the atmosphere became noticeably uncomfortable.
Obviously, we didn't pass the shipment judgment. I was so sorry for the other two development teams. However, I was certain that we had successfully accomplished a milestone. From the bottom of my heart, I thanked the members developing LU, the members that saved us with signal processing and the members who tweaked the LSI software until the very end.
Starting with Koji who organized development, members of development who had attended the meeting could not hide their disappointment. What saved us was the positive energy of all members. That night, we had a small party with the development members in recognition of their services. Although verification work awaited us on the next day, the gloomy atmosphere was already gone since the goal was now crystal clear.
I took that weekend off. It was the first break in months and the first time in quite a while that I lived normally according to the calendar. I slept as if I were in a coma. Apparently, there were some development members that slept straight for 24 hours, though this is probably a common scene for those involved in development.
Later, we were able to prove that the measure for the error was correct and officially passed the shipment judgment on February 14th, half a month since the first shipment judgment meeting. Valentine's Day in 2000 became an important day of commemoration. It was the day the development of the first IP-PBX was completed in Japan.
Leader of full IP-PBX
IPstage, the first IP-PBX, was used by a certain forward-thinking customer. And up to the present, IPstage has been used by many, many users (Fig. 1). My gratitude goes to each and every customer for allowing IPstage to develop into what it is today.
Fig. 1 IPstage configuration, structured by a wide array of products
It was a tough development project. Although there is much that I cannot disclose, I will summarize the result of the project.
This development project opened the doors to the age of full IP-PBX. We were able to create a truly innovative product with significant value. I take pride in our technically-superior development and believe that we have contributed a great deal to the evolution of the fundamental technology of IP telephony. I believe our development concept of integrating voice communication with information utilizing the advantages of DNS, LAN switches, and so on, was right on the mark. I am constantly reminded of this when looking at the IP trend of current voice communication.
On the other hand, a completely new product means extreme difficulty in terms of sales and market approach. Unlike me who concentrated on work from the standpoint of development, major tasks were assigned to persons in charge of product planning that must consider how to approach the market in terms of sales. There is never a happy ending for the actual business that follows either. A series of hardships continued since it was not a product that brought about large profit.
VoIP with voice quality equivalent to traditional telephones
But I am proud about one thing: we were able to build a technical foundation for the broadband age that will spread in the future now that VoIP technology has evolved from VoIP over narrowband connections to VoIP over broadband networks. In other words, VoIP has evolved from "voice quality that can be used as a telephone" to "voice quality equivalent to a traditional telephone"
The technology created in this development product is already being applied in IP network systems other than IP-PBX.
IPstage was the pioneer of IP-PBX, setting aside its success or failure in terms of business. It is the result of the VoIP basic concept for communication within companies that was started by Department Manager Sekine. The influence is evident, regardless of how small, when looking at the IP-PBX products that have been commercialized inside and outside Japan.
I strongly believe that the technology cultivated at this time will help many customers now that we have entered the broadband age and various types of communication other than telephones have started to surface.
Although this series is written from a point of view of LU development that I took part in, I would like to add that the industry-first IP-PBX "IPstage" was completed through various dramas each development team experienced through their development of the IP telephone and CCU .
Activities for integrating voice on LAN continues
In such a way, the first IPstage was shipped. But the development of the next version started immediately. The development tackled the essential problem that questioned the future of VoIP: whether or not voice can be integrated with LAN and IP networks that are asynchronous. Unless this problem is solved, the IP-PBX will not be used widely among conventional companies as a device replacing the standard PBX.
I knew that this would be a difficult road. But there was no turning back now. Although there was never really an option, my mind was set. In the following episodes, I will explain the details concerning the essential problem, and how we solved it.
... To be continued
