Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 22Busy with market handling (August 2000 ~ spring 2001)
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
PHS accommodation in IP-PBX was finally complete, and everything needing attention was accommodated. The generation for handling voice over an IP network was finally arriving.
Development of the basic system was complete in August 2000, and we felt that we had attained a certain technical level. I was feeling a sense of achievement since the lineup of solutions for voice communication in a full IP network was ready for corporate networks.
That year, IP-PBX "IPstage" was shipped while obtaining assessments from forward-thinking customers (Fig. 1). Although I had confidence in the quality, there were still some problems that were unexpected. I became extremely busy due to the start of development on the next improved version and at the same time, handling customer　follow-up issues. I want to apologize again for the inconvenience I had caused customers at that time.
Photo 1 : IP stage system configuration
Some customers felt that I was too hung up on full IP. In my mind, I had to. But why full IP?
There was no mistake in my desire to decrease infrastructure cost through IP integration. Although there is no need to venture into that field if giving priority to only businesses of the immediate future; however, voice would sooner or later become caught in IP networks. Hence, I believed that a rich and more convenient society would come by integrating voice with information. And I knew there would always be additional value by integrating voice with data, not just lowering infrastructure cost.
This was not just a personal belief. The company also had such a sense of direction. And I believe our vision was not wrong. Just like the scenario we had drawn, PCs spread in corporate offices to one PC per person. At the same time, business style of using email became common, and environments of LAN started to appear. Port unit cost of LAN switches also dropped drastically and there was no doubt that voice would be fully integrated in the trend of data networks.
But a vision for business does not always link directly and easily with reality. No matter what we believe to be is correct, the cycle for the widespread adoption will not occur if the process up to the delivery of the value becomes frayed. I became acutely aware of this fact. In order to open a market with the commercialization of a leading product, there is first the need to create a roadmap. I want to note that there were tremendous efforts by related personnel in development, sales, SE, dealer, construction and maintenance, as well as the understanding and support of customers accepting this unknown product as a result before the roadmap to the widespread adoption of IPstage was completed.
VoIP product development and increase of engineers
Between the latter half of 2000 to 2002, there were many product development projects centering on the core technology of VoIP. There were also efforts for improvements and cutback of cost, which may seem nothing special but were essential to the widespread adoption of products. In other words, it was the period when we tackled the necessary product lineup, price cutback and application technology development at one time for the spread of VoIP systems in the world.
For this reason, engineers were thoroughly moved within the company and the total number of employees was increased. This was the period when the development design capability concerning VoIP had spread to the entire OKI Group including affiliated companies. Engineers that had been developing communication devices for stations shifted to the development of VoIP products, and the capacity of VoIP technology development was strengthened company-wide. At the present, we are involved in the development of many VoIP products, and I take pride in the fact that we were able to serve many customers over the years.
Start of development in fiscal 2001
There were a tremendous number of developments scheduled in the development plan of this fiscal year. Development of many models was expected. I was able to acquire many product development members that were skilled and young, as well as transfer personnel that were experienced, for a well-balanced team. Since more than half of these members had already been in charge of developing VoIP products, it was a group of big guns. The first product shipment of VoIP gateway "BV1500" was scheduled at the beginning of July. Development was advanced by members who shared the experience of the first VoIP development, and those who had the will, passion and skill to see the project through until the dawn of IP telephony. They were highly motivated and I felt that there was nothing we couldn't do with these members.
When entering fiscal 2001, however, we were forced to make drastic changed in the initial plan due to a major and unexpected event. The event occurred in June 2001.
... To be continued
