By now you must have heard the news, right? It has been circulating around the internet for some time and has proliferated with the advancement of the smartphone, that one day soon, your trusted desktop phone will disappear. Vanish. Go "bye-bye."
Even the analysts think so. In February of this year, Gartner announced, "Enterprise Mobile Phones Will Replace Desktop Phones in North America by 2011."
Replace my desk phone with my mobile phone? As my daughter would say, "I mean, seriously?"
Well, I’m here to tell you, I just don’t see it happening.
And I can give you a number of reasons why I just don’t think this is EVER going to happen:
- My desktop phone doesn’t get lost, left at home, stolen or accidentally dropped in the toilet.
- My desktop phone doesn’t give me a crick in the neck like my mobile does whenever I try to use both hands and cradle it with my shoulder.
- I never get asked, "Dad, can I play brick-breaker on your phone?" or "Dad, can I take a picture?" when I’m using my desktop phone.
- My desktop phone doesn’t need charged every night and I never have to say, "Hey, do you have a charger I can borrow?"
- I never drop a call with my desktop phone.
- I don’t have to enter a password into my desktop phone to answer or make a call.
- Others can use my desktop phone without knowing my password.
- I don’t have to wipe off the oily residue or makeup off my deskphone.
- I never have to hear, "You sound like you are talking in a tunnel" when I use my desktop phone.
- I know how to mute, hold, transfer or conference a call with my desktop phone and can do it without taking the phone away from my ear.
- I can let someone borrow my desktop phone without worrying about them getting into any of my personal information.
- My IT staff doesn’t have to figure out how to support hundreds of combinations of makes, models and firmware versions of my desktop phone.
- My finance department doesn’t have to deal with dozens of carriers, statements, roll-over minutes and expense reports when I use my desktop phone.
Sure, my desktop phone doesn’t travel with me, provide me with wake-up alarms, music, videos, contacts, or a whole host of other apps – but it was never meant to. It was designed to be a reliable form of communication, day in and day out. And that’s what I love most about it.
What about you? Would you really want to use your Blackberry, iPhone, Storm, or other smartphone as your only phone while in the office?
Tim Passios
I began working for Interactive Intelligence in 1998 and have a more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and software industries. I also worked in contact centers as an agent, supervisor, field trainer and manager for eight of those 20 years. In my current role at Interactive Intelligence I have constant interactions with customers, prospects, the media and industry analysts, which all help me to understand many different perspectives related to the contact center, unified communications and business process automation markets. When I’m not working I like to spend time with my family.
I love my desktop phone. I love my mobile device. If I had to use my mobile phone for all communications I believe that would cause a loss in productivity along with a stiff neck.
Just food for thought, and your blog is interesting, but here are some "other" technology statements that never came true.
“This ‘Telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
A memo at Western Union, 1878
“It is a great invention but who would want to use it anyway?”
Rutherford B. Hayes, US President (after a demo of Alexander Bell’s Telephone, 1876)
“Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan”
Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948
“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night”
Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
And there are countless other well known statements by those who were considered elite experts in their day proclaiming that something wouldn’t work, or wouldn’t last.
At least we know communications are here to stay. Until the day our devices are embedded into our skin, I will just use my desktop phone while in my cube and my mobile device when I am….mobile.
Thanks!
I’m sure this is really a great joke on your part, but I think a reality check is going to be called for.
1) Your desk phone is not availble for you to take calls on the move.
2) Your deskphone doesn’t really supply you with information when you need it away from the office.
3) Your deskphone doesn’t wake you or remind you of meetings.
4) Generally your deskphone won’t look up train times or connect with the internet.
5) Your deskphone doesn’t hold pictures of your family or similar.
6) I think you get the idea.
The point is the desktop phone is on the way out and wether you like it or not the PDA device is going to excel for the near future.
Advice— Buy up all the deskphones and then in 20 years time we can view them in a museum.
Good Luck with sticking to the older ways of working.
Bernard
To be honest, I really do not want my desktop phone taken from me for all of the reasons that I listed above (and many others). As I read through your comments, I have to agree with you that my desktop phone doesn’t do all of the things that you mention above, however, I don’t want it to. That is why I will always have a mobile phone AND a desktop phone and I hope neither every replace the other.
I’ll even go as far as to say that while there are many of you out there who would really like to go to just one phone, the majority of us would rather not see their desktop phone replaced by their mobile phone.
Do you agree?
When @ the desktop, wouldn’t you use your PC/or MAC for your pictures, or surfing the web, or whatever else you might be required in your daily duties?
Personally, I would take my dual monitors with vast real-estate over a 3.5" lcd. I’m sure I would be really productive if I had to work out of an Excel spreadsheet with about 5 other windows open…via my "smartphone". Not really.
I can see the desktop phone becoming antiquated…and when I say that I only mean the lump of plastic and circuit board and keypad that makes up the . Sure…that can go the way side b/c all my communications are handled via a graphical user interface that allows me to…communicate.
Sure…take my chunk of plastic called a "phone"…but don’t make me use a miniature device (that can store pictures of my family) for my day to day communications.
“And so the idea was, well maybe you can take an Atari video game machine, where people plug in a game cartridge, and plug in a modem, and tie that into a telephone, and essentially turn that game in the machine into an interactive terminal”
My computer is the same. It is my interactive terminal. My cell phone allows me to stay interactive, while on the go. And there in remains the intrinsic difference of both mediums.
Thanks!
My desktop phone doesn’t give me a crick in the neck like my mobile does whenever I try to use both hands and cradle it with my shoulder.– Isn’t this why headsets were created? Because holding a phone up all day in a call center was uncomfortable?
I never get asked, "Dad, can I play brick-breaker on your phone?" or "Dad, can I take a picture?" when I’m using my desktop phone.– Probably because your kids aren’t with you at work most of the time. When they are I bet they ask if they can play games on your computer.
My desktop phone doesn’t need charged every night and I never have to say, "Hey, do you have a charger I can borrow?"– Don’t most enterprise phone systems have some sort of power supply that comes in along with the voice line and a number of VOIP systems use power over ethernet.
I don’t have to enter a password into my desktop phone to answer or make a call.– Mobile phones generally don’t require entering a password to answer a call, though many people set a password to prevent outbound calls without permission. I also remember early versions of the EIC system requiring a password for complete functionality. Even now many systems with software clients require a password for full functionality. It justs looks like they don’t because of single sign on options on the networks.
Others can use my desktop phone without knowing my password.–Mobile is the same way. Passwords are required only if you set it.
I don’t have to wipe off the oily residue or makeup off my deskphone.–Perhaps you should look at the handset a little more often. They do pick up residue.
I know how to mute, hold, transfer or conference a call with my desktop phone and can do it without taking the phone away from my ear.–So you took the time to learn how to use your desk phone but your mobile phone doesn’t require the same attention? Even if it replaces your desk phone? Don’t know what to say to that.
My IT staff doesn’t have to figure out how to support hundreds of combinations of makes, models and firmware versions of my desktop phone.–Ever looked at the number of different SIP based phones out there? Most have firmware, most have upgrades and they all have to be tracked.
My finance department doesn’t have to deal with dozens of carriers, statements, roll-over minutes and expense reports when I use my desktop phone.– Why would they need to do this? If, as a company, we decide to replace the desktop phone with a mobile phone wouldn’t it make more sense negotiate a deal with one carrier and provide those to my employees? Many companies already do this.
To sum it all up, 9 of your 12 reasons need help- I don’t think that the dektop phone will go away per se, but I do believe that there are a number of arguments for a mobile enabled Enterprise PBX. I think there are many benefits to be garnered from providing a flexible system.
And no, when I’m at my desk I use my dual 20" monitors on my desktop for everything. The difference for me is when I walk away from my desk I pick up my phone and take all of my emails, spreadsheets and documents along with the whole internet with me.
Yes, I see call-center workers keeping their desk phones. Yes, I see secretaries keeping their desk phones, and yes, I see a fair amount of people keeping their desk phones as a secondary device provided they don’t travel a lot. But, as teleworking and hoteling become more popular in the workplace, I believe the mobile phone will gain popularity as a primary communication device — for the people involved in those programs.
Great rebuttle and some very good thoughts.
However, my main argument still remains. The idea of making a mobile phone, specifically a cellular phone and not a wireless PBX phone, would be a very difficult sell into a mid to large-sized enterprise for many of the reasons I mentioned. I’ll expand on just one of those reasons in this response – power for a cell phone vs. a desktop phone.
Sure, your desktop phone needs power, too, but it is always on. Whether using POE or a power supply, it always remains available and I have never run out of power. When you contrast that with the power-hungry iPhones, I couldn’t imagine the pain an IT staff would have to go through just trying to make sure all of their mobile phones were powered. All it would take is a phone call from an angry executive compaining that his mobile phone is dead and that he never had to deal with that with his desktop phone and I’m sure a quick switch back would be in the works.
Great comments. I do think that you hit the nail on the head when you said, "when I’m at my desk, I use my dual 20" monitors on my desktop for everything." I think that this is more typical of most people, that they will use a different device (a softphone for example) when they are in the office sitting at their desk than they will when they walk away from their desk.
Thanks for the comments!
for eample:
1) Cell phone is too small for people’s fat fingers – this just need a redesign of user interface of cell/mobile phone or a dock, not even need a high tech solution
2) I don’t want to be called from my employer out of work time – how about you have two phone numbers on one mobile device and you can disable any of them, or even your work number can only be access within your office building.
3) I don’t like keeping on charging a mobile phone – This sounds like a solid reason, but still you can join no-desktop-phone club soon. The modern materials science is making it possible that you do not need to charge your cell phone battery for a month or even longer. still not satisfied? well, two years ago, a MIT research group have demonstrated a wireless power transfer in lab already. Still think it is far away from your life? Some companies like Nokia are already in the middle of developing the technology using Ambient electromagnetic radiation to charge a cell phone. a no-charger cell phone will come to market in next few years.
3 ….
4 ….
5 ….
Don’t underrate the speed of technology development, it is true that a lot famous people’s prediction never come true, but it is also true that there are more what we can not imagine today will come true.
Well, even all these problems are solved you still want to keep on findng reasons to keep your desktop, go a head, wish you good luck to find an affordable service for traditional desktop phone all your life.
I am in the process of fitting up a brand new building and have to deal with this before we move in (18 months). We currently have a mix of smartphones and deskphones (IP deskphone, softphone & TDM).
Coming from a telecom background, dialtone has always been the number one application in a company. Now having both network and telecom (voice/data) I am in the envious position to steer the organization into single platform (as per our users requests). The problem we are currently experiencing have been stated above (too small a device; always having to charge unit; limited conferencing ability;etc.). As much as I would like to get all in one, I do not think organizations that have in-house staff will fully adopt this approach. However, for people on the road and Teleworkers, this is an ideal solution.
I only have about two months to determine the move in strategy and these discussion are very useful for my planning….thanks for kicking it off.
Dave
If you, or anyone else, would like to see some more banter about this topic, check out the Unified Communications group inside of LinkedIn for more!