Developers Continue Converged Innovation

At the end of the day, it’s all about delivering services and solutions that support a business model – isn’t that what a “converged network” aims to do? Often, the developers who spend painstaking hours, days, months, and years, to deliver integration between systems, are often forgotten. On the communications server forefront, there are multitudes of companies that develop software for literally any brand and model of system. Whether it’s IVR and ERP integration, to LDAP directory integration, etc., there’s usually an integration piece that will fill the void. As an example, for those of you who utilize Cisco CallManager, I’ve been reading about a very interesting suite of products that simultaneously pushes an audio stream and/or text message to many IP phones at once. The beauty of this software is that it can be pre-recorded messages or live audio, most likely developed to handle Mass Notification in emergency response situations. Developed by solutions-provider Berbee (now part of CDW), this solutions-provider / development firm is located literally in my backyard, less than one hundred miles away. http://www.berbee.com/public/berbeesoftware/InformaCast.aspx My point? Hundreds if not thousands of development firms work very hard to provide custom integration solutions and products that extend the ‘value’ of an existing communications server or network. Without these developers, would we really have “convergence”?