Five years ago: IBM, Mitel, MS team up for low-cost CTI

First published 23 April, 1997

IBM, Mitel and Microsoft today announced a package bringing computer telephony integration (CTI) to small and medium enterprises at an affordable price. MediaPath brings together the Mitel telephony operating system running on IBM servers with Windows NT, and is aimed at providing services previously only available to blue-chip corporate users.

The system replaces the PBX usually required for a telephone system with a PC server at a price it claims is typically 40 per cent of a PBX-based system. MediaPath supports TAPI, allowing telephony applications to be written using standard Windows development tools. MAPI integration is also supported, allowing voice-mail to be treated in the same way as e-mail, and MediaPath is available with Microsoft Exchange Server to take advantage of this feature. Voice-mail and fax support are included as standard.

MediaPath uses standard telephone handsets, plugged into adapter cards in the telephony server, and distributes call information over the LAN. The IBM servers being used have fault-tolerant features such as redundant power supplies and RAID disk arrays.